Debt Crisis Explained: Similarities, Differences and Lessons Learned from the US

What exactly is this US debt crisis? Why does a country borrow? When a country spends more than it earns through revenues, it has to borrow money from the global market to meet the expenditure. The country also needs to pay back the debt in installments over a period of time. This is called as debt obligations. So once a country borrows, the expenditure of the country shoots up. Hence the next time the country has to borrow more to meet not just the expenditure but also the debt obligations. From this you can understand that the countries’ debt amount goes on increasing with time as they borrow more and more. United States is no different and is also under a huge debt of $14.3 trillion at present. In fact, lending money to US is considered as a safe and promising investment. It is very common for a country to spend more than its revenues. So it is also normal for a country to borrow. In 2011 federal budget, the US government estimated the expenditure at $3.82 trillion and revenues at something more than $2 trillion. That implies a deficit of around $1.5 trillion. Under normal situation, US govt. would have borrowed and compensated this deficit. But they couldn’t because of the debt ceiling that is set by the US Congress. ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
What is debt ceiling? Debt ceiling is a cap set by the US Congress on the amount of debt the government can borrow. The limit was first set in 1917 at $11.5 billion. Whenever the govt. reaches the ceiling, it can’t borrow more. Every time the cap is reached the Congress approves a higher debt ceiling and directs the treasury to borrow more. To raise the cap, a legislation has to be passed in both the houses of the Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The cap was last raised to $14.3 trillion which the current govt. reached in May this year. Since then the US is not being able to borrow more debt. ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

The Crisis of Credit Visualized – HD

CBO: Taxes Will ‘Shoot Up by More Than 30 Percent’ Over Next 2 Years

“…The amount of money the federal government takes out of the U.S. economy in taxes will increase by more than 30 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the Budget and Economic Outlook published today by the CBO.

At the same time, according to CBO, the economy will remain sluggish, partly because of higher taxes.

“In particular, between 2012 and 2014, revenues in CBO’s baseline shoot up by more than 30 percent,” said CBO, “mostly because of the recent or scheduled expirations of tax provisions, such as those that lower income tax rates and limit the reach of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and the imposition of new taxes, fees, and penalties that are scheduled to go into effect.” …”

“…According to the CBO report, federal tax revenues equaled $2.302 trillion in fiscal 2011, and will increase to $2,523 trillion in fiscal 2012, $2,988 trillion in fiscal in 2013, and $3,313 trillion in 2014.

As a percentage of GDP, according to CBO, federal tax revenues were 15.4 percent in fiscal 2011, and will be 16.3 percent in 2012, 18.8 percent in 2013, and 20.0 percent in fiscal 2014. …”

Summary

Each January, CBO prepares “baseline” budget projections spanning the next 10 years. Those projections are not a forecast of future events; rather, they are intended to provide a benchmark against which potential policy changes can be measured. Therefore, as specified in law, those projections generally incorporate the assumption that current laws are implemented.

But substantial changes to tax and spending policies are slated to take effect within the next year under current law. So CBO has also prepared projections under an “alternative fiscal scenario,” in which some current or recent policies are assumed to continue in effect, even though, by law, they are scheduled to change. The decisions made by lawmakers as they confront those policy choices will have a significant impact on budget outcomes in the coming years.

CBO’s Current-Law Baseline

CBO projects a $1.1 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 if current laws remain unchanged. Measured as a share of the nation’s output (gross domestic product, or GDP), that shortfall of 7.0 percent is nearly 2 percentage points below the deficit recorded in 2011, but still higher than any deficit between 1947 and 2008. Over the next few years, projected deficits in CBO’s baseline decline markedly, dropping to under $200 billion and averaging 1.5 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period.

Revenues

Much of the projected decline in the deficit occurs because, under current law, revenues are projected to shoot up by almost $800 billion, or more than 30 percent, between 2012 and 2014—from 16.3 percent of GDP in 2012 to 20.0 percent in 2014. That increase is mostly the result of of the recent or scheduled expirations of tax provisions, such as those initially enacted in 2001, 2003, and 2009 that lower income tax rates and those that limit the number of people subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT).

Under current law, CBO projects that revenues will continue to rise relative to GDP after 2014 largely because increases in taxpayers’ inflation-adjusted income will push more income into higher tax brackets and subject more of it to the AMT.

Spending

Outlays in CBO’s baseline projections decline modestly relative to GDP over the next several years before turning up again later in the decade. The modest declines are the result of an expanding economy and statutory caps on discretionary appropriations. The aging of the population and rising costs for health care drive increases in spending in later years.

Projected spending in CBO’s baseline averages 21.9 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period. That figure is less than the 23.2 percent CBO estimates for 2012, but it remains elevated by historical standards. As a share of GDP, discretionary spending is projected to decline to its lowest level in the past 50 years by 2022, but that decline will be partially offset by increases in spending for mandatory programs, which are projected to climb from 13.3 percent of GDP in 2013 to 14.3 percent in 2022. Driven by higher interest rates and additional accumulation of debt, net interest costs will grow significantly—from 1.4 percent of GDP this year to 2.5 percent in 2022.

CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario

CBO’s baseline projections are heavily influenced by changes in tax and spending policies that are embodied in current law—changes that in some cases represent a significant departure from recent policies.

CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario shows the budgetary consequences of maintaining certain tax and spending policies that have recently been in effect. That scenario incorporates the following assumptions:

Expiring tax provisions (other than the payroll tax reduction) are extended [under current law, those expirations will boost individual income taxes in a variety of ways by amounts totaling $3.8 trillion from 2013 through 2022];

The AMT is indexed for inflation after 2011 [under current law, its parameters are fixed, and the number of taxpayers affected by the AMT will jump from 4 million in calendar year 2011 to 30 million in 2012];

Medicare’s payment rates for physicians’ services are held constant at their current level [under current law, those rates are scheduled to drop by 27 percent this March and more in later years]; and

The automatic spending reductions required by the Budget Control Act do not take effect [under current law, they will impose reductions totaling about $109 billion a year starting in January 2013].

Under that alternative fiscal scenario, far larger deficits and much greater debt would result than are shown in CBO’s baseline. Deficits would average 5.4 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period, rather than the 1.5 percent reflected in CBO’s baseline projections. Debt held by the public would climb to 94 percent of GDP in 2022, the highest figure since just after World War II.

The Economic Outlook

In part because of the dampening effect of the higher tax rates and curbs on spending scheduled to occur this year and next, CBO expects that the economy will continue to recover slowly, with real GDP growing by 2.0 percent this year and 1.1 percent next year (as measured by the change from the fourth quarter of the previous calendar year). CBO expects economic activity to quicken after 2013 but to remain below the economy’s potential until 2018.

In CBO’s forecast, the unemployment rate remains above 8 percent both this year and next, a consequence of continued weakness in demand for goods and services. As economic growth picks up after 2013, the unemployment rate will gradually decline to around 7 percent by the end of 2015, before dropping to near 5½ percent by the end of 2017.

While the economy continues to recover during the next few years, inflation and interest rates will remain low. In CBO’s forecast, the price index for personal consumption expenditures increases by just 1.2 percent in 2012 and 1.3 percent in 2013, and rates on 10-year Treasury notes average 2.3 percent in 2012 and 2.5 percent in 2013. As the economy’s output approaches its potential later in the decade, inflation and interest rates will rise to more normal levels.

Many developments could produce economic outcomes that differ from CBO’s forecast. For example:

The forces that have restrained the economy’s recovery could fade more rapidly than anticipated.

A significant worsening of the banking and fiscal problems in Europe could spill over to U.S. financial markets and greatly weaken the economy here.

Changes in fiscal policy that diverge from those in CBO’s baseline could affect economic growth.

CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario represents one possible set of changes in fiscal policy. Under that scenario, real GDP would be noticeably higher in the next few years than it is in CBO’s baseline economic forecast: CBO estimates that, with such changes in policy, real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2013 would be between 0.5 percent and 3.7 percent greater than in the baseline forecast, and that the unemployment rate would be between 0.3 and 1.8 percentage points lower. But, over time, the resulting larger deficits would reduce private investment in productive capital and result in real GDP that would fall increasingly below the level in CBO’s baseline projections.

Regime Uncertainty – Then and Now | Robert Higgs

Robert Higgs on C-SPAN2’s Book TV, Part 1 of 3

“…Originally aired 4/4/2009. Robert Higgs, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, discusses his work as an author and political economist in a featured interview with In Depth on C-SPAN2’s Book TV. …”

Robert Higgs on C-SPAN2’s Book TV, Part 2 of 3

Robert Higgs on C-SPAN2’s Book TV, Part 3 of 3

Robert Higgs on the Rise and Fall of Leviathan

“…Robert Higgs is an economic historian whose writings focus on the causes and means of government growth. He is the author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (1989). Higgs speaks here at a Future of Freedom Foundation conference in 1995 on the ratchet effect- the idea that governments tend to grab power during emergencies but do not cede it completely after each crisis abates- and gives his own analysis of what it might take to slow the growth of government in the 21st century. …”

Painting of the Week: The Death of Socrates

Plato – The Apology

2. Socratic Citizenship: Plato’s Apology

Introduction to Political Philosophy (PLSC 114)

The lecture begins with an explanation of why Plato’s Apology is the best introductory text to the study of political philosophy. The focus remains on the Apology as a symbol for the violation of free expression, with Socrates justifying his way of life as a philosopher and defending the utility of philosophy for political life.00:00 – Chapter 1. Introduction: Plato, Apology 09:31 –

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Apology (Plato)

Apology

“…The Apology is Plato’s version of the speech given by Socrates as he unsuccessfully defended himself in 399 BC[1] against the charges of “corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel” (24b). “Apology” here has its earlier meaning (now usually expressed by the word “apologia”) of speaking in defense of a cause or of one’s beliefs or actions (from the Ancient Greek ἀπολογία).

The text

Xenophon, who wrote his own Apology of Socrates, indicates that a number of writers had published accounts of Socrates’ defense. According to one prominent scholar, “Writing designed to clear Socrates’ name was doubtless a particular feature of the decade or so following 399 BC”.[2] Many scholars guess that Plato’s Apology was one of the first, if not the very first, dialogues Plato wrote, though there is little if any hard evidence.[3] Plato’s Apology is commonly regarded as the most reliable source of information about the historical Socrates.[4]

Except for two brief exchanges with Meletus (at 24d-25d and 26b-27d), where the monologue becomes a dialogue, the text is written in the first person from Socrates’ point of view, as though it were Socrates’ actual speech at the trial. During the course of the speech, Socrates twice mentions Plato as being present (at 34a and 38b). There is, however, no real way of knowing how closely Socrates’ words in the Apology match those of Socrates at the actual trial, even if it was Plato’s intention to be accurate in this respect. One contemporary criticism of Plato’s Apology is perhaps implied by the opening paragraphs of Xenophon’s Apology, assuming that the former antedated the latter; Xenophon remarks that previous writers had failed to make clear the reason for Socrates’ boastful talk (megalēgoria) in the face of the death penalty. Xenophon’s account disagrees in some other respects with the details of Plato’s Apology, but he nowhere explicitly claims it to be inaccurate.[citation needed]

Introduction

The Apology begins with Socrates saying he does not know if the men of Athens (his jury) have been persuaded by his accusers. This first sentence is crucial to the theme of the entire speech. Indeed, in the Apology Socrates will suggest that philosophy begins with a sincere admission of ignorance; he later clarifies this, dramatically stating that whatever wisdom he has, comes from his knowledge that he knows nothing (23b, 29b).

Socrates imitates, parodies and even corrects the Orators by asking the jury to judge him not by his oratorical skills, but by the truth (cf. Lysias XIX 1,2,3, Isaeus X 1, Isocrates XV 79, Aeschines II 24). Socrates says he will not use ornate words and phrases that are carefully arranged, but will speak using the expressions that come into his head. He says he will use the same way of speaking that he is heard using at the agora and the money tables. In spite of his disclaimers, Socrates proves to be a master orator who is not only eloquent and persuasive, but even wise. This is how he corrects the Orators, showing what they should have been doing all along, speaking the truth persuasively with wisdom. The speech does not succeed in winning him acquittal. Socrates is condemned to death.

Socrates’ accusers

The three men who brought the charges against Socrates were:

Anytus, son of a prominent Athenian, Anthemion. Socrates says Anytus joined the prosecution because he was “vexed on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians” (23e-24a). Anytus makes an important cameo appearance in Meno. Anytus appears unexpectedly while Socrates and Meno (a visitor to Athens) are discussing the acquisition of virtue. Having taken the position that virtue cannot be taught, Socrates adduces as evidence for this that many prominent Athenians have produced sons inferior to themselves. Socrates says this, and then proceeds to name names, including Pericles and Thucydides. Anytus becomes very offended, and warns Socrates that running people down (“kakos legein”) could get him into trouble someday (Meno 94e-95a).

Plutarch gives some information that might help us realize the real reason behind Anytus’ worries. He says that Anytus wanted to be friends with Alcibiades but he preferred to be with Socrates. And also we hear that Anytus’ son had a sexual relationship with Socrates, which was an accepted relationship between teacher and pupil in classical Athens.

Meletus, the only accuser to speak during Socrates’ defense. Socrates says Meletus joined the prosecution because he was “vexed on behalf of the poets” (23e). He is mentioned in another dialog, the Euthyphro, but does not appear in person. Socrates says there that Meletus is a young unknown with hook-nose. In the Apology, Meletus allows himself to be cross-examined by Socrates and stumbles into a trap. Apparently not paying attention to the very charges he is bringing, he accuses Socrates both of atheism and of believing in demi-gods.

Lycon, about whom, according to one scholar, “we know nothing except that he was the mouthpiece of the professional rhetoricians.”[5] Socrates says Lycon joined the prosecution because he was “vexed on behalf of the rhetoricians” (24a). Some scholars, such as Debra Nails, identify Lycon as the father of Autolycus, who appears in Xenophon’s Symposium 2.4ff. Nails also identifies Socrates’ prosecutor with the Lycon who is the butt of jokes in Aristophanes and became a successful democratic politician after the fall of the Four Hundred; she suggests that he may have joined in the prosecution because he associated Socrates with the Thirty Tyrants, who had executed his son, Autolycus.[6] Others, however, question the identification of Socrates’ prosecutor with the father of Autolycus; John Burnet, for instance, claims it “is most improbable”.[7]

Socrates says that he has to refute two sets of accusations: Socrates was charged with disrespect toward the gods and corruption of the youth. He did believe in the gods, but questioned their abilities.

Socrates says that the old charges stemmed from years of gossip and prejudice against him and hence were difficult to address. These so called ‘informal charges’ Socrates puts into the style of a formal legal accusation: “Socrates is committing an injustice, in that he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example” (19b-c). He says that these allegations are repeated in a certain comic poet, namely Aristophanes. In his play, The Clouds, Aristophanes lampooned Socrates by presenting him as the paradigm of atheistic, scientific sophistry. Yet it is unlikely that Aristophanes would have intended these charges to be taken seriously, since Plato depicts Aristophanes and Socrates as being on very good terms with each other in the Symposium.

Socrates says that he cannot possibly be mistaken for a sophist because they are wise (or at least thought to be) and highly paid. He says he lives in “ten-thousandfold poverty” (23c) and claims to know nothing noble and good.

The dialogue

The Apology can be divided into three parts. The first part is Socrates’ own defense of himself and includes the most famous parts of the text, namely his recounting of the Oracle at Delphi and his cross-examination of Meletus. The second part is the verdict, and the third part is the sentencing.

Part one

Socrates begins by telling the jury that their minds were poisoned by his enemies when they were young and impressionable. He says his reputation for sophistry comes from his enemies, all of whom are envious of him, and malicious. He says they must remain nameless, except for Aristophanes, the comic poet. He later answers the charge that he has corrupted the young by arguing that deliberate corruption is an incoherent idea. Socrates says that all these false accusations began with his obedience to the oracle at Delphi. He tells how Chaerephon went to the Oracle at Delphi, to ask if anyone was wiser than Socrates. When Chaerephon reported to Socrates that the god told him there is none wiser, Socrates took this as a riddle. He himself knew that he had no wisdom “great or small” but that he also knew that it is against the nature of the gods to lie.

Socrates then went on a “divine mission” to solve the paradox (that an ignorant man could also be the wisest of all men) and to clarify the meaning of the Oracles’ words. He systematically interrogated the politicians, poets and craftsmen. Socrates determined that the politicians were imposters, and the poets did not understand even their own poetry, like prophets and seers who do not understand what they say. Craftsmen proved to be pretentious too, and Socrates says that he saw himself as a spokesman for the oracle (23e). He asked himself whether he would rather be an impostor like the people he spoke to, or be himself. Socrates tells the jury that he would rather be himself than anyone else.

Socrates says that this questioning earned him the reputation of being an annoying busybody. Socrates interpreted his life’s mission as proof that true wisdom belongs to the gods and that human wisdom and achievements have little or no value. Having addressed the cause of the prejudice against him, Socrates then tackles the formal charges, corruption of the young and atheism.

Socrates’ first move is to accuse his accuser, Meletus (whose name means literally, “the person who cares,” or “caring”) of not caring about the things he professes to care about. He argues during his interrogation of Meletus that no one would intentionally corrupt another person (because they stand to be harmed by him at a later date). The issue of corruption is important for two reasons: first, it appears to be the heart of the charge against him, that he corrupted the young by teaching some version of atheism, and second, Socrates says that if he is convicted, it will be because Aristophanes corrupted the minds of his audience when they were young (with his slapstick mockery of Socrates in his play, “The Clouds”, produced some twenty-four years earlier).

Socrates then proceeds to deal with the second charge, that he is an atheist. He cross-examines Meletus, and extracts a contradiction. He gets Meletus to say that Socrates is an atheist who believes in spiritual agencies and demigods. Socrates announces that he has caught Meletus in a contradiction, and asks the court whether Meletus has designed an intelligence test for him to see if he can identify logical contradictions.

Socrates repeats his claim that it will not be the formal charges which will destroy him, but rather the prejudicial gossip and slander. He is not afraid of death, because he is more concerned about whether he is acting rightly or wrongly. Further, Socrates argues, those who fear death are showing their ignorance: death may be a great blessing, but many people fear it as an evil when they cannot possibly know it to be such. Again Socrates points out that his wisdom lies in the fact that he is aware that he does not know.

Socrates states clearly that a lawful superior, whether human or divine, should be obeyed. If there is a clash between the two, however, divine authority should take precedence. “Gentlemen, I am your grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you; and as long as I draw breath and have my faculties I shall never stop practicing philosophy”. Since Socrates has interpreted the Delphic Oracle as singling him out to spur his fellow Athenians to a greater awareness of moral goodness and truth, he will not stop questioning and arguing should the people forbid him to do so, even if they were to withdraw the charges. Nor will he stop questioning his fellow citizens. “Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?”

In a highly inflammatory section of the Apology, Socrates claims that no greater good has happened to Athens than his concern for his fellow citizens, that wealth is a consequence of goodness (and not the other way around), that God does not permit a better man to be harmed by a worse, and that, in the strongest statement he gives of his task, he is a stinging gadfly and the state a lazy horse, “and all day long I will never cease to settle here, there and everywhere, rousing, persuading and reproving every one of you.”

As further evidence of his task, Socrates reminds the court of his daimon which he sees as a supernatural experience. He recognizes this as partly behind the charge of believing in invented beings. Again Socrates makes no concession to his situation.

Socrates claims to never have been a teacher, in the sense of imparting knowledge to others. He cannot therefore be held responsible if any citizen turns bad. If he has corrupted anyone, why have they not come forward to be witnesses? Or if they do not realize that they have been corrupted, why have their relatives not stepped forward on their behalf? Many relatives of the young men associated with him, Socrates points out, are presently in the courtroom to support him.

Socrates concludes this part of the Apology by reminding the judges that he will not resort to the usual emotive tricks and arguments. He will not break down in tears, nor will he produce his three sons in the hope of swaying the judges. He does not fear death; nor will he act in a way contrary to his religious duty. He will rely solely on sound argument and the truth to present his case.

The verdict

Socrates is voted guilty by a narrow margin (36a). Plato never gives the total number of Socrates’ judges nor the exact numbers of votes against him and for his acquittal,[8] though Socrates does say that if only 30 more had voted in his favor then he would have been acquitted. Many scholars assume the number of judges was 281 to 220 and was sentenced to death by a vote of 361 to 140 [9].[10]

Part two

It was the tradition that the prosecution and the defendant each propose a penalty, from which the court would choose. In this section, Socrates antagonises the court even further when considering his proposition.

He points out that the vote was comparatively close: he only needed 30 more votes for himself, and he would have been found innocent. He engages in some dark humour by suggesting that Meletus narrowly escaped a fine for not meeting the statutory one-fifth of the votes (in order to avoid frivolous cases coming to court, plaintiffs were fined heavily if the judges’ votes did not reach this number in a case where the defendant won). Assuming there were 501 or 500 jurymen, the prosecution had to gain at least 100 of the judges’ votes. Taken by itself however Meletus’ vote (as representing one-third of the prosecution case) would have numbered only 93 or 94 (assuming 501 or 500 total judges). Regardless of the number of plaintiffs, it was their case that had to reach the requisite one-fifth. Not only that, the prosecutors had won.

Instead of proposing a penalty, Socrates instead proposes a reward for himself: as benefactor to Athens, he should be given free meals in the Prytaneum, one of the important buildings which housed members of the Council. This was an honour reserved for athletes and other prominent citizens.

Finally Socrates considers imprisonment and banishment before settling on a fine of 100 drachmae, as he had little funds of his own with which he could pay the fine. This was a small sum when weighed against the punishment proposed by the prosecutors and encouraged the judges to vote for the death penalty. Socrates’ supporters immediately increased the amount to 3,000 drachmae, but in the eyes of the judges this was still not an alternative.

So the judges decided on the sentence of death.

Part three

Plato indicates that the majority of judges voted in favor of the death penalty (Apology 38c), but he does not indicate exactly how many did. Our only source for the actual numbers of these votes is Diogenes Laertius, who says that 80 more voted for the death sentence than had voted for Socrates’ guilt in the first place (2.42); but the details of this account have been disputed.[11] Others have concluded from this that Socrates’ speech angered the jury.[12]

Socrates now responds to the verdict. He first addresses those who voted for death.

He claims that it is not a lack of arguments that has resulted in his condemnation, but rather lack of time and his unwillingness to stoop to the usual emotive appeals expected of any defendant facing death. Again he insists that the prospect of death does not absolve one from following the path of goodness and truth.

Socrates prophesies that younger and harsher critics will follow him vexing them even more.(39d)

To those who voted for his acquittal, Socrates gives them encouragement: He says that his daimon did not stop him from conducting his defense in the way that he did, that this was a sign that it was the right thing to do.

In this way, his daimon was even telling him that death must be a blessing. For either it is an annihilation (thus bringing eternal peace from all worries, and therefore not something to be truly afraid of) or a migration to another place to meet souls of famous people such as Hesiod and Homer and heroes like Odysseus. With these, it will be a joy to continue the practice of Socratic dialogue.

Socrates concludes his Apology with the claim that he bears no grudge against those who accused and condemned him, and asks them to look after his three sons as they grow up, ensuring that they put goodness before selfish interests.

Modes of interpretation

Three different methods for interpreting the Apology have been commonly suggested. The first of these, that it was meant to be solely a piece of art, is not widely held.[citation needed]

A second possibility is that the Apology is a historical recounting of the actual defense made by Socrates in 399 BC. This seems to be the oldest opinion. Its proponents maintain that, as one of Plato’s earliest works, it would not have been fitting to embellish and fictionalise the memory of his mentor, especially while so many who remembered him were still living.[citation needed]

In 1741, Johann Jakob Brucker was the first to suggest that Plato was not to be trusted as a source about Socrates. Since that time, more evidence has been brought to light supporting the theory that the Apology is not a historical account but a philosophical work.[citation needed]

“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”

~ Sun Tzu

Background Articles and Videos

How Empires Bamboozle the Bourgeoisie | Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

With US Military Bases surrounding Iran, Who is threatening Who?

by Jeff Smith (GRIID)

“…The United States has already declared a de facto war on Iran. The partners in crime in the European Union and the NATO alliance have joined in, and are ganging up on Iran as instructed by Washington. The EU voted to ban imports of Iranian oil and the Obama administration is attempting to extract similar promises from Asian nations.

Obama has succeeded in doing what George Bush never could. For the second time in less than one year he has managed to get nearly all western nations on board with his plans for conquest. Regime change in Libya has not been without complications for the west, but Gaddafi was not just overthrown, he was killed, and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out, Washington could not have been happier with that outcome.

The writing is on the wall, and Americans can expect to see a presidential address within the next few months, announcing bombings, drone attacks or an outright invasion with ground troops against Iran. The thought of this crime is enough to make any conscious individual sick with anger, but with no power in the world capable of stopping the United States, the die are cast.

When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, millions of people around the world took to the streets. Bush was discredited because of his fraudulent election and his ham-fisted treatment of even allied nations. Obama is hampered by none of these complications. He is loved by Democrats who hated Bush and was likewise welcomed by people around the world who shared that antipathy to his predecessor. He was awarded a Nobel peace prize merely on the basis of having been elected president. Such accolades give him a protective Teflon coating that would have made Ronald Reagan jealous.

After claiming that an Iranian used car salesman hatched a bizarre assassination plot, and lying about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and threatening that nation for pledging to defend itself, the question is not whether there will be an attack, but when. The other question is what the people of this country and this world will say and do when that occurs. Iran has been demonized so thoroughly that only the most ardent peace activists will come to its defense, but defend it they must.

Iran has done nothing to warrant the enmity expressed by the west and its people have the right to live free from yet another American attack on their nation and on their lives. Thirty years ago another American president, Ronald Reagan, supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. This sorry episode has been largely forgotten, but it should be pointed out that more than one million people died in the decade long conflict which would not have taken place without America’s arms and money. …”

Are we headed for war with Iran? A military expert sheds light.

“…As Iran defies the world and works toward building nuclear arms, Washington is turning up the heat in an effort to get the Iranians to back off. President Obama last week convinced Europe to impose economic sanctions on Iran — which some have called an act of war.

The United States doesn’t buy oil from Iran, but Europe is its No. 2 market. Europe’s embargo, with a push from America, could be crippling. And Obama is trying to convince Iran’s customers in Asia — China, India, Japan, South Korea — to join in.

The attack on Iran’s already wounded economy could push its leaders to retaliate: Iran is threatening to use military force to close the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and cut off the flow of oil to the United States and its allies.

Obama has moved more U.S. warships into the gulf — just in case — while he tries to find a diplomatic solution.

Tensions with Tehran are getting worse: Did Israel assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist? Did the United States know about it? Will Japan and South Korea join the oil embargo? Will Iran execute a U.S. spy?

In the background, meanwhile, Obama’s Republican challengers are talking tough and pushing for a show of U.S. force.

Where’s it all heading? Star-Ledger editorial writer Jim Namiotka last week spoke with Eric Davis, a political science professor at Rutgers University and an expert on Middle Eastern affairs.

Q: Let’s start here: What are the odds of a U.S. war with Iran in 2012? 2013?

A: I would say that the odds are relatively small because neither side would benefit.
Iran would find itself isolated even more internationally. A war would increase support for Iran’s isolation by increasing the number of countries willing to impose sanctions.

For the U.S., war would have a very damaging impact on foreign relations in the Middle East, where it already has a poor image and is viewed as a bully and imperialist power.

Domestically, a war would lead to a drastic increase in gas prices. There are warnings that oil prices would go up to $300 or $400 a barrel or even higher. It would undermine the already tepid economic recovery we’re seeing here now in the U.S.

Q: Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. Is that a real possibility?

A: Closing the Strait of Hormuz would be a violation of international law, which might justify action by the United Nations — paralleling the kind of action that was taken against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War over violations of international law. The Iranian regime couldn’t predict what the outcome of closing the strait would be, but it certainly knows that the U.S. wouldn’t allow that to happen.

Q: Europe has now said it will boycott Iranian oil if Iran’s leaders don’t halt their nuclear production. How can we expect Iran to react?

A: International sanctions have already wreaked havoc on Iran’s currency and forced the government to dramatically increase interest rates. The more significant effect is that the deteriorating economic situation is going to affect the parliamentary elections this coming March. It was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has rejected calls to raise interest rates, which is necessary to protect the value of the Iranian rial.

As a result, his parliamentary candidates could suffer in the March elections.
So the sanctions are having both an economic impact and a political impact, as well.

One of the few options available to the Iranians is to try and increase their rhetoric on closing the Strait of Hormuz to force an increase in oil prices. This would have the effect of at least temporarily increasing the price of oil.

Even if Iran sold less oil, what it did sell would bring a higher price.

Iran can saber-rattle and it can threaten certain actions. But the Iranians can only go so far — they’re not about to start attacking tankers and laying mines because that would be considered an international act of war.

Q: What if other countries, such as Japan and South Korea, join in?

A: You might see perhaps — not a collapse of the Iran economy; that would be too extreme a prediction — but severe economic problems.

Five reasons US must avoid war with Iran

Do the drumbeaters calling for ‘war with Iran’ never learn from history? It is tempting to dismiss their hot air as an attempt to score political points, but its sheer volume is worrying. Two former US hostages in Iran say Obama must ignore the war talk, and keep in mind these five key points.

“…The Iranians are claiming they recently disabled an American drone aircraft. If they did so, Americans should find out how, and apply their techniques to deal with those closer to home who drone on about the “Iranian threat,” beat the war drums by suggesting military strikes and regime change, and risk dragging this country into a new military calamity in the Middle East.

Do these droners and drumbeaters never learn from history? Would they have the United States enter a new catastrophe just as we are extricating ourselves – with great difficulty – from two bloody, costly, and unproductive misadventures in Iran’s neighborhood?

To all appearances American drumbeaters are no smarter than Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who, in 1980, thought that a weakened and divided Iran would fall easily to his better-armed and better-organized forces. Instead his attack united Iranians – even those who detested the prevailing holy fascism – behind defending the homeland. In that sense, Hussein also helped the authorities in Tehran to suppress all domestic dissent and consolidate power under the most authoritarian and intolerant of ideologies.

Just because a war with Iran is foolish, however, does not mean it will not happen. Several discredited former American officials such as former ambassador to the UN John Bolton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrichare essentially calling for one. While it is tempting to dismiss the current rhetoric as hot air intended to score political points, its sheer volume and frequency is worrying. Nine years ago, in the case of Iraq, a similar flood of rhetoric, fear mongering, and distortion overwhelmed good judgment, and led America on a course that defied common sense. It could happen again, this time in a way that could make Iraq look easy.

US officials – particularly the president – who have the difficult task of dealing with Iran should ignore the recent cacophony of war talk, and keep in mind the following:

• Iran is chiefly a threat to itself. Its diplomacy has been inept, featuring charm offensives alternating with making gratuitous enemies. It has few friends in its region, beyond tiny, Christian Armenia. Unlike most of its neighbors, it is not Arab, Turkish, or Sunni Muslim, and thus lacks a ready entree into regional affairs. Its support of President Bashir al-Assad’s regime in Syria, while under­standable from a strategic point of view, has won it few friends in the region.

• The priority of those in power in Tehran is their own political survival. When that is at stake, they can become remarkably flexible (or brutal). As a former Iranian official once put it, regarding the Iran-Iraq war: They don’t care how many young people die in the Iraqi swamps. But they are not going to commit political suicide. …”

The Republican Party establishment definitely wants Mitt Romney to be the party’s Presidential candidate in order that the Republican Party can stay in power in the House and capture the Senate.

Unfortunately, neither the tea party nor the conservative movement including libertarian and traditional conservatives, independents, the unemployed and the youth of America want another big government spending progressive neoconservative as the next president.

I for one will stay home if Romney, Gingrich or Santorum are the party’s nominee.

Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are all big government spending progressive neoconservatives that will never cut spending and balance the budget.

Instead, all three want to start another war in the middle east with Iran.

The American people want Federal government spending to be cut by at least $1 trillion and the budget balanced in the next two to three years.

The American people want the elimination of the IRS and all federal income taxes and payroll taxes and their replacement with a consumption national sales tax–the FairTax.

The American people want government departments, agencies, and programs shut down permanently and welfare, entitlement and defense spending cut.

The American people want government spending limited to what the federal government collects in tax revenues and no more increases in the national debt.

The American people want all the troops to come home and a withdrawal from the middle east.

The Republican Party establishment elite wants none of the above.

The Republican Party establishment has been captured by the progressive neoconservatives.

Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are all progressive neoconservatives.

The only candidate advocating limited government and non-intervention at home and abroad is Ron Paul.

Paul has been highly critical of big government progressive neoconservatives.

Congressman Ron Paul, MD – We’ve Been NeoConned

Should Paul not get the Republican nomination, I sincerely hope he runs as the candidate of a third-party.

The Republican Party establishment are simply no longer listening nor understanding what conservatives and libertarians want is limited government with balanced budgets and a non-interventionist government at home and abroad.

The time is ripe for a third-party that would attract independents, Republicans and Democrats.

No more big government spending progressives and/or neoconservatives of either party.

The American people want a real choice and not another counterfeit conservative. who “talks” conservative but spends insanely.

17. Constitutional Government: Locke’s Second Treatise (13-19)

18. Democracy and Participation: Rousseau’s Discourse

Bertrand Russell – Locke’s Political Philosophy (3/6)

Bertrand Russell – Locke’s Political Philosophy (4/6)

Bertrand Russell – Locke’s Political Philosophy (5/6)

Bertrand Russell – Locke’s Political Philosophy (6/6)

John Locke

John Locke FRS ( /ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Liberalism,[2][3][4] was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.[5]

Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.[6]

Biography

Locke’s father, who was also called John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna,[7] who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. His mother was Agnes Keene. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born on 29 August 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset, about twelve miles from Bristol. He was baptised the same day. Soon after Locke’s birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton.

In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and his father’s former commander. After completing his studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through his friend Richard Lower, whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the English Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member.

Locke was awarded a bachelor’s degree in 1656 and a master’s degree in 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1674, having studied medicine extensively during his time at Oxford and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and Richard Lower. In 1666, he met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for a liver infection. Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue.

Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 moved into Shaftesbury’s home at Exeter House in London, to serve as Lord Ashley’s personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a major effect on Locke’s natural philosophical thinking – an effect that would become evident in the An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Locke’s medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury’s liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation (then life-threatening itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.

It was in Shaftesbury’s household, during 1671, that the meeting took place, described in the Epistle to the reader of the Essay, which was the genesis of what would later become the Essay. Two extant Drafts still survive from this period. It was also during this time that Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, helping to shape his ideas on international trade and economics.

John Locke

Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke’s political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Following Shaftesbury’s fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France as tutor and medical attendant to Caleb Banks.[8] He returned to England in 1679 when Shaftesbury’s political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Around this time, most likely at Shaftesbury’s prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government. While it was once thought that Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, recent scholarship has shown that the work was composed well before this date,[9] however, and it is now viewed as a more general argument against Absolute monarchy (particularly as espoused by Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes) and for individual consent as the basis of political legitimacy. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that period in English history.

However, Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, although there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme. In the Netherlands, Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange’s wife back to England in 1688. The bulk of Locke’s publishing took place upon his return from exile – his aforementioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession.

Locke’s close friend Lady Masham invited him to join her at the Mashams’ country house in Essex. Although his time there was marked by variable health from asthma attacks, he nevertheless became an intellectual hero of the Whigs. During this period he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton.

He died in 28 October 1704, and is buried in the churchyard of the village of High Laver,[10] east of Harlow in Essex, where he had lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham since 1691. Locke never married nor had children.

Events that happened during Locke’s lifetime include the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. He did not quite see the Act of Union of 1707, though the thrones of England and Scotland were held in personal union throughout his lifetime. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke’s time.

Influence

Locke exercised a profound influence on political philosophy, in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong influence on Voltaire who called him “le sage Locke”. His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, one passage from the Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a “long train of abuses.” Such was Locke’s influence that Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Bacon, Locke and Newton … I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences”.[11][12][13] Today, most contemporary libertarians claim Locke as an influence.

But Locke’s influence may have been even more profound in the realm of epistemology. Locke redefined subjectivity, or self, and intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel argue that Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) marks the beginning of the modern Western conception of the self.[14]

Theories of religious tolerance

Locke, writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–92) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance. Three arguments are central: (1) Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints; (2) Even if they could, enforcing a single “true religion” would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence; (3) Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.[15]

Constitution of Carolina

Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in general, and also to appraisals of the United States. Detractors note that (in 1671) he was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Shaftesbury’s secretary, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. For example, Martin Cohen notes that as a secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673–4) and a member of the Board of Trade (1696–1700) Locke was, in fact, “one of just half a dozen men who created and supervised both the colonies and their iniquitous systems of servitude”.[16] Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having been intended to justify the displacement of the Native Americans.[17][18] Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy and racism, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists.[19]

Theory of value and property

Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labour.

In Chapter V of his Second Treatise, Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified by the labour exerted to produce those goods or utilise property to produce goods beneficial to human society.[20]

Locke stated his belief, in his Second Treatise, that nature on its own provides little of value to society; he provides the implication that the labour expended in the creation of goods gives them their value. This is used as supporting evidence for the interpretation of Locke’s labour theory of property as a labour theory of value, in his implication that goods produced by nature are of little value, unless combined with labour in their production and that labour is what gives goods their value.[20]

Locke believed that ownership of property is created by the application of labour. In addition, he believed property precedes government and government cannot “dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily.” Karl Marx later critiqued Locke’s theory of property in his own social theory.

Political theory

See also: Two Treatises of Government

Locke’s political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions”. This became the basis for the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.[21]

Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name[22] and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day.[23] Locke also advocated governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Limits to accumulation

Labour creates property, but it also does contain limits to its accumulation: man’s capacity to produce and man’s capacity to consume. According to Locke, unused property is waste and an offence against nature.[24] However, with the introduction of “durable” goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and thus not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process. Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage.[25] He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,”[26] since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. However, not all elements of his thought form a consistent whole. For example, labour theory of value of the Two Treatises of Government stands side by side with the demand-and-supply theory developed in a letter he wrote titled Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.[27]

On price theory

Locke’s general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory, which was set out in a letter to a Member of Parliament in 1691, titled Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money.[28] Supply is quantity and demand is rent. “The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers.” and “that which regulates the price… [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.” The quantity theory of money forms a special case of this general theory. His idea is based on “money answers all things” (Ecclesiastes) or “rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough,” and “varies very little…” Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as far as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated by its quantity. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply, goods in general are considered valuable because they can be exchanged, consumed and they must be scarce. For demand, goods are in demand because they yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalisation, such as land, which has value because “by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income.” Demand for money is almost the same as demand for goods or land; it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange or as loanable funds. For medium of exchange “money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life.” For loanable funds, “it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income … or interest.”

Monetary thoughts

Locke distinguishes two functions of money, as a “counter” to measure value, and as a “pledge” to lay claim to goods. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it.

Locke argues that a country should seek a favourable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock. Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates. The latter is less significant and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country’s money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, it will cause the country’s exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do.

He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups (landholders, labourers and brokers). In each group the cash requirements are closely related to the length of the pay period. He argues the brokers – middlemen – whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of labourers and landholders, had a negative influence on both one’s personal and the public economy that they supposedly contributed to.

The self

Locke defines the self as “that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends”.[29] He does not, however, ignore “substance”, writing that “the body too goes to the making the man.”[30] The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware and self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body.

In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an “empty” mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas.[31]

John Locke’s formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was influenced by a 17th century Latin translation Philosophus Autodidactus (published by Edward Pococke) of the Arabic philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan by the 12th century Andalusian-Islamic philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as “Abubacer” or “Ebn Tophail” in the West). Ibn Tufail demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment through his Arabic philosophical novel novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child “from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society” on a desert island, through experience alone.[32]

Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline on how to educate this mind: he expresses the belief that education maketh the man, or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an “empty cabinet”, with the statement, “I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.”[33]

Locke also wrote that “the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences.”[34] He argued that the “associations of ideas” that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what first mark the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting “a foolish maid” convince a child that “goblins and sprites” are associated with the night for “darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.”[35]

“Associationism”, as this theory would come to be called, exerted a powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory, as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley’s attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).

Religious beliefs

Some scholars have seen Locke’s political convictions as deriving from his religious beliefs.[36][37][38] Locke’s religious trajectory began in Calvinist trinitarianism, but by the time of the Reflections (1695) Locke was advocating not just Socinian views on tolerance but also Socinian Christology; with veiled denial of the pre-existence of Christ.[39] However Wainwright (Oxford, 1987) notes that in the posthumously published Paraphrase (1707) Locke’s interpretation of one verse, Ephesians 1:10, is markedly different from that of Socinians like Biddle, and may indicate that near the end of his life Locke returned nearer to an Arian position.[40]

List of major works

(1689) A Letter Concerning Toleration

(1690) A Second Letter Concerning Toleration

(1692) A Third Letter for Toleration

(1689) Two Treatises of Government

(1690) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(1693) Some Thoughts Concerning Education

(1695) The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures

(1695) A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity

Major unpublished or posthumous manuscripts

(1660) First Tract of Government (or the English Tract)

(c.1662) Second Tract of Government (or the Latin Tract)

(1664) Questions Concerning the Law of Nature (definitive Latin text, with facing accurate English trans. in Robert Horwitz et al., eds., John Locke, Questions Concerning the Law of Nature, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).

(1667) Essay Concerning Toleration

(1706) Of the Conduct of the Understanding

(1707) A paraphrase and notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians

Background Artilces and Videos

Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.[1][2]

Classical liberalism developed in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.[3] Notable individuals who have contributed to classical liberalism include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.[4] It drew on the economics of Adam Smith and on a belief in natural law, utilitarianism, and progress.

There was a revival of interest in classical liberalism in the 20th century led by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.[5]

Some call the late 19th century development of classical liberalism “neo-classical liberalism,” which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom, while some refer to all liberalism before the 20th century as classical liberalism.[6]

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[7] Libertarianism has been used in modern times as a substitute for the phrase “neo-classical liberalism”, leading to some confusion. The identification of libertarianism with neo-classical liberalism primarily occurs in the United States,[8] where some conservatives and right-libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government.[9][10][11]

Core principles

According to E. K. Hunt, classical liberals made four assumptions about human nature: People were “egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic”.[12] Being egoistic, people were motivated solely by pain and pleasure. Being calculating, they made decisions intended to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. If there were no opportunity to increase pleasure or reduce pain, they would become inert. Therefore, the only motivation for labor was either the possibility of great reward or fear of hunger. This belief led classical liberal politicians to pass the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which limited the provision of social assistance. On the other hand, classical liberals believed that men of higher rank were motivated by ambition. Seeing society as atomistic, they believed that society was no more than the sum of its individual members. These views departed from earlier views of society as a family and, therefore, greater than the sum of its members.[13]

Classical liberals agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from one another. They thought that individuals should be free to pursue their self-interest without control or restraint by society. Individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers, while the profit motive would ensure that products that people desired were produced at prices they would pay. In a free market, both labor and capital would receive the greatest possible reward, while production would be organized efficiently to meet consumer demand.[14]

Adopting Thomas Malthus’s population theory, they saw poor urban conditions as inevitable, as they believed population growth would outstrip food production; and they considered that to be desirable, as starvation would help limit population growth. They opposed any income or wealth redistribution, which they believed would be dissipated by the lowest orders.[15]

Government, as explained by Adam Smith, had only three functions: protection against foreign invaders, protection of citizens from wrongs committed against them by other citizens, and building and maintaining public institutions and public works that the private sector could not profitably provide. Classical liberals extended protection of the country to protection of overseas markets through armed intervention. Protection of individuals against wrongs normally meant protection of private property and enforcement of contracts and the suppression of trade unions and the Chartist movement. Public works included a stable currency, standard weights and measures, and support of roads, canals, harbors, railways, and postal and other communications services.[16]

Overview

Classical liberalism places a particular emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual, with private property rights being seen as essential to individual liberty. This forms the philosophical basis for laissez-faire public policy. According to Alan Ryan, the ideology of the original classical liberals argued against direct democracy, where law is made by majority vote by citizens, “for there is nothing in the bare idea of majority rule to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or maintain rule of law.”[17] For example, James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections for individual liberty over a pure democracy, reasoning that, in a pure democracy, a “common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole…and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party….”[18]

According to Anthony Quinton, classical liberals believe that “an unfettered market” is the most efficient mechanism to satisfy human needs and channel resources to their most productive uses: they “are more suspicious than conservatives of all but the most minimal government.”[19] Anarcho-capitalist Walter Block claims, however, that, while Adam Smith was an advocate of economic freedom, he also allowed for government to intervene in many areas.[20]

Classical liberalism holds that individual rights are natural, inherent, or inalienable, and exist independently of government. Thomas Jefferson called these inalienable rights: “…rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”[21] For classical liberalism, rights are of a negative nature—rights that require that other individuals (and governments) refrain from interfering with individual liberty, whereas social liberalism (also called modern liberalism or welfare liberalism) holds that individuals have a right to be provided with certain benefits or services by others.[22] Unlike social liberals, classical liberals are “hostile to the welfare state.”[17] They do not have an interest in material equality but only in “equality before the law”.[23] Classical liberalism is critical of social liberalism and takes offense at group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights.[24]

Friedrich Hayek identified two different traditions within classical liberalism: the “British tradition” and the “French tradition”. Hayek saw the British philosophers David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke and William Paley as representative of a tradition that articulated beliefs in empiricism, the common law, and in traditions and institutions which had spontaneously evolved but were imperfectly understood. The French tradition included Rousseau, Condorcet, the Encyclopedists and the Physiocrats. This tradition believed in rationalism and the unlimited powers of reason and sometimes showed hostility to tradition and religion. Hayek conceded that the national labels did not exactly correspond to those belonging to each tradition: Hayek saw the Frenchmen Montesquieu, Constant and Tocqueville as belonging to the “British tradition” and the British Thomas Hobbes, Priestley, Richard Price and Thomas Paine as belonging to the “French tradition”.[25] Hayek also rejected the label “laissez faire” as originating from the French tradition and alien to the beliefs of Hume, Smith and Burke.

History

Classical liberalism in the United Kingdom developed from Whiggery and radicalism, and represented a new political ideology. Whiggery had become a dominant ideology following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and was associated with the defence of Parliament, upholding the rule of law and defending landed property. The origins of rights were seen as being in an ancient constitution, which had existed from time immemorial. These rights, which some Whigs considered to include freedom of the press and freedom of speech, were justified by custom rather than by natural rights. They believed that the power of the executive had to be constrained. While they supported limited suffrage, they saw voting as a privilege, rather than as a right. However there was no consistency in Whig ideology, and diverse writers including John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke were all influential among Whigs, although none of them was universally accepted.[26]

British radicals, from the 1790s to the 1820s, concentrated on parliamentary and electoral reform, emphasizing natural rights and popular sovereignty. Richard Price and Joseph Priestly adapted the language of Locke to the ideology of radicalism.[26] The radicals saw parliamentary reform as a first step toward dealing with their many greivances, including the treatment of Protestant Dissenters, the slave trade, high prices and high taxes.[27]

There was greater unity to classical liberalism ideology than there had been with Whiggery. Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights. They believed that required a free economy with minimal government interference. Writers such as John Bright and Richard Cobden opposed both aristocratic privilege and property, which they saw as an impediment to the development of a class of yeoman farmers. Some elements of Whiggery opposed this new thinking, and were uncomfortable with the commercial nature of classical liberalism. These elements became associated with conservatism.[28]

A meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League in Exeter Hall in 1846

Classical liberalism was the dominant political theory of the United Kingdom from the early 19th century until the First World War. Its notable victories were the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, the Reform Act of 1832, and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The Anti-Corn Law League brought together a coalition of liberal and radical groups in support of free trade under the leadership of Richard Cobden and John Bright, who opposed militarism and public expenditure. Their policies of low public expenditure and low taxation were adopted by William Ewart Gladstone when he became chancellor of the exchequer and later prime minister. Classical liberalism was often associated with religious dissent and nonconformism.[29]

Although classical liberals aspired to a minimum of state activity, they accepted the principle of government intervention in the economy from the early 19th century with passage of the Factory Acts. From around 1840 to 1860, laissez-faire advocates of the Manchester School and writers in The Economist were confident that their early victories would lead to a period of expanding economic and personal liberty and world peace but would face reversals as government intervention and activity continued to expand from the 1850s. Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, although advocates of laissez-faire, non-intervention in foreign affairs, and individual liberty, believed that social institutions could be rationally redesigned through the principles of Utilitarianism. The Conservative prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, rejected classical liberalism altogether and advocated Tory Democracy. By the 1870s, Herbert Spencer and other classical liberals concluded that historical development was turning against them.[30] By the First World War, the Liberal Party had largely abandoned classical liberal principles.[31]

The changing economic and social conditions of the 19th led to a division between neo-classical and social liberals who, while agreeing on the importance of individual liberty, differed on the role of the state. Neo-classical liberals, who called themselves “true liberals”, saw Locke’s Second Treatise as the best guide, and emphasized “limited government”, while social liberals supported government regulation and the welfare state. Herbert Spencer in the United Kingdom and William Graham Sumner were the leading neo-classical liberal theorists of the 19th century.[32] Neo-classical liberalism has continued into the contemporary era, with writers such as Robert Nozick.[33]

In the United States, liberalism took a strong root because it had little opposition to its ideals, whereas in Europe liberalism was opposed by many reactionary interests. In a nation of farmers, especially farmers whose workers were slaves, little attention was paid to the economic aspects of liberalism. But, as America grew, industry became a larger and larger part of American life; and, during the term of America’s first populist president, Andrew Jackson, economic questions came to the forefront. The economic ideas of the Jacksonian era were almost universally the ideas of classical liberalism. Freedom was maximized when the government took a “hands off” attitude toward industrial development and supported the value of the currency by freely exchanging paper money for gold. The ideas of classical liberalism remained essentially unchallenged until a series of depressions, thought to be impossible according to the tenets of classical economics, led to economic hardship from which the voters demanded relief. In the words of William Jennings Bryan, “You shall not crucify the American farmer on a cross of gold.” Despite the common recurrence of depressions, classical liberalism remained the orthodox belief among American businessmen until the Great Depression.[34] The Great Depression saw a sea change in liberalism, leading to the development of modern liberalism. In the words of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.:

When the growing complexity of industrial conditions required increasing government intervention in order to assure more equal opportunities, the liberal tradition, faithful to the goal rather than to the dogma, altered its view of the state,” and “there emerged the conception of a social welfare state, in which the national government had the express obligation to maintain high levels of employment in the economy, to supervise standards of life and labor, to regulate the methods of business competition, and to establish comprehensive patterns of social security.[35]

Intellectual sources

John Locke

John Locke

Central to classical liberal ideology was their interpretation of John Locke’s Second treatise of government and “A letter concerning toleration”, which had been written as a defence of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Although these writings were considered too radical at the time for the United Kingdom’s new rulers, they later came to be cited by Whigs, radicals and supporters of the American Revolution. However much of later liberal thought was absent in Locke’s writings or scarcely mentioned, and his writings have been subject to various interpretations. There is little mention for example of constitutionalism, the separation of powers and limited government.[36]

James L. Richardson identified five central themes in Locke’s writing: individualism, consent, the concepts of the rule of law and government as trustee, the significance of property and religious toleration. Although Locke did not develop a theory of natural rights, he envisioned individuals in the state of nature as being free and equal. The individual, rather than the community or institutions, was the point of reference. Locke believed that individuals had given consent to government and therefore authority derived from the people rather than from above. This belief would influence later revolutionary movements.[37]

As a trustee Government was expected to serve the interests of the people not the rulers, and rulers were expected to follow the laws enacted by legislatures. Locke also held that the main purpose of men uniting into commonwealths and governments was for the preservation of their property. Despite the ambiguity of Locke’s definition of property, which limited property to “as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of”, this principle held great appeal to individuals possessed of great wealth.[38]

Finally, Locke held that the individual had the right to follow his own religious beliefs and that the state should not impose a religion against Dissenters. But there were limitations. No tolerance should be shown for atheists, who were seen as amoral, or to Catholics, who were seen as owing allegiance to the Pope over their own national government.[39]

Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was to provide most of the ideas of classical liberal economics, at least until the publication of J. S. Mill’s Principles in 1848.[40] Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of prices and the distribution of wealth, and the policies the state should follow in order to maximize wealth.[41]

Smith saw self-interest, rather than altruism, as the motivation for the production of goods and services. An “invisible hand” directed the tradesman to work toward the public good. This provided a moral justification for the accumulation of wealth, which had previously been viewed as sinful.[41] He assumed that workers could be paid as low as was necessary for their survival, which was later transformed by Ricardo and Malthus into the “Iron Law of Wages”.[42] His main emphasis was on the benefit of free internal and international trade, which he thought could increase wealth through specialization in production.[43] He also opposed restrictive trade preferences, state grants of monopolies, and employers’ organisations and trade unions.[44] Government should be limited to defence, public works and the administration of justice, financed by taxes based on income.[45]

Smith’s economics was carried into practice in the 19th century with the lowering of tariffs in the 1820s, the repeal of the Poor Relief Act, that had restricted the mobility of labour, in 1834, and the end of the rule of the East India Company over India in 1858.[46]

Say, Malthus and Ricardo

In addition to Adam Smith’s legacy, Say’s law, Malthus theories of population and Ricardo’s iron law of wages became central doctrines of classical economics. The pessimistic nature of these theories led to Carlyle calling economics the dismal science and it provided a basis of criticism of capitalism by its opponents.[47]

Jean Baptiste Say was a French economist who introduced Adam Smith’s economic theories into France and whose commentaries on Smith were read in both France and the United Kingdom.[46] Say challenged Smith’s labour theory of value, believing that prices were determined by utility and also emphasized the criterical role of the entrepreneur in the economy. However neither of those observations became accepted by British economists at the time. His most important contribution to economic thinking was “Say’s law”, which was interpreted by classical economists that there could be no overproduction in a market, and that there would always be a balance between supply and demand.[48] This general belief influenced government policies until the 1930s. Following this law, since the economic cycle was seen as self-correcting, government did not intervene during periods of economic hardship because it was seen as futile.[49]

Thomas Malthus wrote two books, An essay on the principle of population, published in 1798, and Principles of political economy, published in 1820. The second book which was a rebuttal of Say’s law had little influence on contemporary economists.[50] His first book however became a major influence on classical liberalism. In that book, Malthus claimed that population growth would outstrip food production, because population grew geometrically, while food production grew arithmetically. As people were provided with food, they would reproduce until their growth outstripped the food supply. Nature would then provide a check to growth in the forms of vice and misery. No gains in income could prevent this, and any welfare for the poor would be self-defeating. The poor were in fact responsible for their own problems which could have been avoided through self-restraint.[51]

David Ricardo, who was an admirer of Adam Smith, covered many of the same topics but while Smith drew conclusions from broadly empirical observations, Ricardo used induction, drawing conclusions by reasoning from basic assumptions.[52] While Ricardo accepted Smith’s labour theory of value, he acknowledged that utility could influence the price of some rare items. Rents on agricultural land were seen as the production that was surplus to the subsistence required by the tenants. Wages were seen as the amount required for workers’ subsistence and to maintain current population levels.[53] According to his Iron Law of Wages, wages could never rise beyond subsistence levels. Ricardo explained profits as a return on capital, which itself was the product of labour. But a conclusion many drew from his theory was that profit was a surplus appropriated by capitalists to which they were not entitled.[54]

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism provided the political justification for implementation of economic liberalism by British governments, which was to dominate economic policy from the 1830s. Although utilitarianism prompted legislative and administrative reform and John Stuart Mill’s later writings on the subject foreshadowed the welfare state, it was mainly used as a justification for laissez-faire.[55]

The central concept of utilitarianism, which was developed by Jeremy Bentham, was that that public policy should seek to provide “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. While this could be interpreted as a justification for state action to reduce poverty, it was used by classical liberals to justify inaction with the argument that the net benefit to all individuals would be higher.[47]

Political economy

Classical liberals saw utility as the foundation for public policies. This broke both with conservative “tradition” and Lockean “natural rights”, which were seen as irrational. Utility, which emphasizes the happiness of individuals, became the central ethical value of all liberalism.[56] Although utilitarianism inspired wide-ranging reforms, it became primarily a justification for laissez-faire economics. However, classical liberals rejected Adam Smith’s belief that the “invisible hand” would lead to general benefits and embraced Thomas Malthus’ view that population expansion would prevent any general benefit and David Ricardo’s view of the inevitability of class conflict. Laissez-faire was seen as the only possible economic approach, and any government intervention was seen as useless. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was defended on “scientific or economic principals” while the authors of the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 were seen as not having had the benefit of reading Malthus.[57]

Commitment to laissez-faire, however, was not uniform. Some economists advocated state support of public works and education. Classical liberals were also divided on free trade. Ricardo, for example, expressed doubt that the removal of grain tariffs advocated by Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League would have any general benefits. Most classical liberals also supported legislation to regulate the number of hours that children were allowed to work and usually did not oppose factory reform legislation.[57]

Despite the pragmatism of classical economists, their views were expressed in dogmatic terms by such popular writers as Jane Marcet and Harriet Martineau.[57] The strongest defender of laissez-faire was The Economist founded by James Wilson in 1843. The Economist criticized Ricardo for his lack of support for free trade and expressed hostility to welfare, believing that the lower orders were responsible for their economic circumstances. The Economist took the position that regulation of factory hours was harmful to workers and also strongly opposed state support for education, health, the provision of water, and granting of patents and copyrights. A rigid belief in laissez-faire also guided government response in 1846–1849 to the Great Famine in Ireland, during which an estimated 1.5 million people died. It was expected that private enterprise and free trade, rather than government intervention, would alleviate the famine.[58]

Free trade and world peace

Several liberals, including Adam Smith and Richard Cobden, argued that the free exchange of goods between nations could lead to world peace, a view recognized by such modern American political scientists as Dahl, Doyle, Russet, and O’Neil. Dr. Gartzke, of Columbia University states, “Scholars like Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, Norman Angell, and Richard Rosecrance have long speculated that free markets have the potential to free states from the looming prospect of recurrent warfare.”[59] American political scientists John R. Oneal and Bruce M. Russett, well known for their work on the democratic peace theory, state:

The classical liberals advocated policies to increase liberty and prosperity. They sought to empower the commercial class politically and to abolish royal charters, monopolies, and the protectionist policies of mercantilism so as to encourage entrepreneurship and increase productive efficiency. They also expected democracy and laissez-faire economics to diminish the frequency of war.[60]

Adam Smith argued in the Wealth of Nations that, as societies progressed from hunter gatherers to industrial societies, the spoils of war would rise but that the costs of war would rise further, making war difficult and costly for industrialized nations.[61]

…the honours, the fame, the emoluments of war, belong not to [the middle and industrial classes]; the battle-plain is the harvest field of the aristocracy, watered with the blood of the people…Whilst our trade rested upon our foreign dependencies, as was the case in the middle of the last century…force and violence, were necessary to command our customers for our manufacturers…But war, although the greatest of consumers, not only produces nothing in return, but, by abstracting labour from productive employment and interrupting the course of trade, it impedes, in a variety of indirect ways, the creation of wealth; and, should hostilities be continued for a series of years, each successive war-loan will be felt in our commercial and manufacturing districts with an augmented pressure. Richard Cobden[62]

When goods cannot cross borders, armies will. – Frédéric Bastiat[63]

By virtue of their mutual interest does nature unite people against violence and war…the spirit of trade cannot coexist with war, and sooner or later this spirit dominates every people. For among all those powers…that belong to a nation, financial power may be the most reliable in forcing nations to pursue the noble cause of peace…and wherever in the world war threatens to break out, they will try to head it off through mediation, just as if they were permanently leagued for this purpose – Immanuel Kant, the Perpetual Peace.

Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the welfare of the state and benefited a small but concentrated elite minority, summing up British imperialism, which he believed was the result of the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies. To Cobden, and many classical liberals, those who advocated peace must also advocate free markets.

Relationship to modern liberalism

Many modern scholars of liberalism argue that no particularly meaningful distinction between classical and modern liberalism exists. Alan Wolfe summarizes this viewpoint, which

reject(s) any such distinction and argue(s) instead for the existence of a continuous liberal understanding that includes both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes… The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy… When instead we discuss human purpose and the meaning of life, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes are on the same side. Both of them possessed an expansive sense of what we are put on this earth to accomplish. Both were on the side of enlightenment. Both were optimists who believed in progress but were dubious about grand schemes that claimed to know all the answers. For Smith, mercantilism was the enemy of human liberty. For Keynes, monopolies were. It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth-century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end.[64]

According to William J. Novak, however, liberalism in the United States shifted, “between 1877 and 1937…from laissez-faire constitutionalism to New Deal statism, from classical liberalism to democratic social-welfarism”.[65]

Hobhouse, in Liberalism (1911), attributed this purported shift, which included qualified acceptance of government intervention in the economy and the collective right to equality in dealings, to an increased desire for what Hobhouse called “just consent”.[66] F. A. Hayek wrote that Hobhouse’s book would have been more accurately titled Socialism, and Hobhouse himself called his beliefs “liberal socialism”.[67]

Joseph A. Schumpeter attributes this supposed shift in liberal philosophy to the 19th century expansion of the franchise to include the working class. Rising literacy rates and the spread of knowledge led to social activism in a variety of forms. Social liberals called for laws against child labor, laws requiring minimum standards of worker safety, laws establishing a minimum wage and old age pensions, and laws regulating banking with the goal of ending cyclic depressions, monopolies, and cartels. Laissez faire economic liberals considered such measures to be an unjust imposition upon liberty, as well as a hindrance to economic development, and, as the working class in the West became increasingly prosperous, they also became more conservative.[68]

Another regularly asserted contrast between classical and modern liberals: classical liberals tend to see government power as the enemy of liberty, while modern liberals fear the concentration of wealth and the expansion of corporate power. Others such as Michael Johnston and Noam Chomsky assert that classical liberalism as such can no longer exist in a modern day context as its principles were only relevant at the time its founding thinkers conceptualized them; and that classical liberalism has grown into two divergent philosophies since the beginning of the twentieth century: social liberalism and market liberalism. [69]

♫♥Once Before I Go by Peter Allen♫♥

Don Lane – Once Before I Go

An emotional Don Lane singing Peter Allen’s ‘Once Before I Go’ on the final Don Lane Show in 1983. The Don Lane Show ran on Channel 9 from 1975 to 1983 and was and still is the highest rating variety program in Australian television history. This song is a fitting tribute to a man who changed the face of Australian television forever. Rest in peace Don, you are a true legend.

ONCE BEFORE I GO

Peter Allen on the Tonight Show

Patti Labelle – Once Before I Go [Live 80’s]

The Boy from OZ Once Before I Go Hugh Jackman

Once before I go
I want you to know
That I would do it all again
I’m sure I’d make the same mistakes
But I could make it through
The pains and joys and aches
I knew back then
I’d do it all
I’d do it all again

Before I go
I want you to know
That I look back with no regrets
And when our luck was wearing thin
And we were down and out
And still came back to win against all bets
Now when I look back
I still have no regrets

And it’s so hard to say good-byes
When there’s so much that’s left
Unspoken in your eyes
But unless I spread my wings again
I’m afraid I’ll never soar
So hang on to the memories
And hold me close once more

Once more
Just once before I go
I want you to know
That I have loved you all along
And even when we’re far apart
I only need to feel you’re living in my heart
And I’ll be strong
Love you just the way
I’ve loved you all along

And it’s so hard to say good-byes
When there’s so much that’s left
Unspoken in your eyes
But unless I spread my wings again
I’m afraid I’ll never soar
So kiss me for the last time
And hold me close once more

Once more
Just once before I go
I want you to know
That I have loved you all along
And even when we’re far apart
I only need to feel you’re living in my heart
And I’ll be strong

You are the light that shines on me
You always were and you’ll always be
So I had to let you know
Just this once
Just this once
Before I go

Background Articles and Videos

PETER ALLEN YOU AND ME (We Wanted It All)

NBC Tomorrow Show (final show) Peter Allen, Tom Snyder, 12/17/1981

PETER ALLEN Hits Medley + I Could Marry the Rain

Peter Allen

“…Peter Allen (10 February 1944 – 18 June 1992) was an Australian songwriter and entertainer. His songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, with one, Arthur’s Theme, winning an Academy Award in 1981. In addition to recording many albums, he enjoyed a cabaret and concert career, including appearing at Radio City Music Hall riding a camel. His marriage to Liza Minnelli ended in divorce, and his most significant relationship was with Gregory Connell, which lasted 15 years.

Peter Allen was born Peter Richard Woolnough in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia. He was the grandson of George Woolnough, whom Allen immortalized in his song “Tenterfield Saddler”. Allen began his performing career with Chris Bell as one of the “Allen Brothers”, who were a popular cabaret and television act in the early 1960s in Australia. Mark Herron, the husband of Judy Garland, discovered Allen while he was performing in Hong Kong. He was invited to return with them to London and the United States, where he performed with Garland.[citation needed]

Career

Allen commenced releasing solo recordings in 1971, but throughout his career achieved greater success through his songs being recorded by others. Allen scored his biggest success with the song “I Honestly Love You” , which he co-wrote with Jeff Barry and which became a major hit in 1974 for Olivia Newton-John. Her single reached number one in the United States and Canada and won two Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Newton-John. Allen also co-wrote “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, with Carole Bayer Sager, popularized by Melissa Manchester in 1978, and “I’d Rather Leave While I’m In Love”, also co-written with Bayer Sager and popularized by Rita Coolidge in 1979. One of his signature songs, “I Go to Rio”, co-written with Adrienne Anderson, was popularized in America by the group Pablo Cruise.

In 1976, Allen released an album Taught By Experts, which reached number one in Australia, along with the number one singles “I Go To Rio” and “The More I See You”. Although his recording career in the U.S. never progressed, he performed in Atlantic City and Carnegie Hall. He had three extended sold-out engagements at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, where he became the first male dancer to dance with The Rockettes and rode a camel during “I Go to Rio.”[1] This performance was broadcast live and exclusively on subscription television service WHT The Movie Network.[2]

His most successful album was Bi-Coastal (1980), produced by David Foster and featuring the single “Fly Away,” which, in 1981, became his only U.S. chart single, reaching #55 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Allen co-wrote the song “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Christopher Cross, for the 1981 movie Arthur. The song reached number one in the U.S., and the songwriters won an Academy Award for Best Song. One lyric for the song: “If you get caught between the moon and New York City” was adapted from an earlier song that he and Bayer Sager co-wrote. Allen and Bayer Sager also co-wrote “You and Me (We Wanted It All),” which was recorded by Frank Sinatra. A video of Sinatra singing the song at Carnegie Hall was included as part of the Sinatra: New York package, released in late 2009.

Allen performed on Australian Television at many important occasions: in front of Queen Elizabeth II in 1980 at the Sydney Opera House, before Prince Charles and Princess Diana, once in Melbourne and again in Sydney, at the opening of the Sydney Entertainment Centre, where he unveiled for the first time his Australian “Flag” shirt, and the 1980 Australian Rules Grand Final in Melbourne. His “Up In One Concert” of 1980 was a huge ratings success across the country. When Australia won The America’s Cup, he flew to Perth to sing before an audience of 100,000. In 1988 he opened for Frank Sinatra at Sanctuary Cove, Queensland. In America he appeared at the 30th Anniversary of Disneyland. He returned to recording on Arista with an album entitled “Not the Boy Next Door” (1983). In 1990 he recorded his final album on RCA, Making Every Moment Count, which featured Melissa Manchester and Harry Connick Jr.

One of his songs, I Still Call Australia Home, became popular through its use in television commercials, initially for National Panasonic, and since 1998 for Qantas Airlines.[3] .[4]This has since become an unofficial anthem for Australians abroad.

Broadway

He made his Broadway debut on 12 January 1971, in Soon, a rock opera that opened at the Ritz Theatre and ran for three performances. He starred in his own one-man revue on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre, “Up in One: More Than a Concert” (1979), which ran for 46 performances.[citation needed]

Allen recorded a live album called “Captured Live at Carnegie Hall” where songs from his musical Legs Diamond, were previewed. Legs Diamond opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on 26 December 1988, with a book co-written by Harvey Fierstein. The musical ran for 64 performances and 72 previews. After Legs Diamond closed he returned to concert work, touring with Bernadette Peters during the summer of 1989.[5] Peter and Bernadette also performed in the early 1980s on the Academy Award broadcast in an extended musical tribute to Irving Berlin.

Other work

He appeared in a cameo role in the film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978).

His live version of “Everything Old is New Again” can be heard on the soundtrack to the film All That Jazz (1979).

He appeared in the 1982 television version of The Pirates of Penzance (as the Pirate King).

He appeared as the “man in studio” in the TV series Miami Vice’s second-season premiere episode “The Prodigal Son”.

He also did a pilot for a new Name That Tune show in 1990, and the pilot for what became CBS’s short-lived primetime game show The Hollywood Game. He died the day the series, which ended up being hosted by Bob Goen due to Allen’s illness, debuted. (citation: The Boy From Oz by Stephen MacLean, 1996)

“The EU must use “the bazooka in its hands” properly to combat debt default, George Soros tells Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland. The European Central Bank should not recapitalize the banks, but rather, guarantee the banks against default. Watch his strategic recommendations here.”

Soros: Greeks would be ill-advised to leave the Eurozone

Soros: Angela Merkel was the creator of the European crisis

“George Soros explains to Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland how German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s actions in 2008 could lead to the disintegration of the European Union. Consequently, a disorderly default of European sovereignties may lead to a global financial meltdown worse than 2008. He explains his analysis here.’

Newsmaker: George Soros

George Soros on “Newspeak”

David Horowitz and Pat Caddell on Soros´ Shadow Cabinet and the Green Communists

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 1 of 6

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 2 of 6

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 3 of 6

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 4 of 6

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 5 of 6

David Horowitz, Shadow Party, Part 6 of 6

Bill Moyers Journal “CREDIT-CRISIS 2008” George Soros (1 0f 3)

Bill Moyers Journal “CREDIT-CRISIS 2008” George Soros (2 0f 3)

Bill Moyers Journal “CREDIT-CRISIS 2008” George Soros (3 0f 3)

Background Articles and Videos

Introducing George Soros

“…Soros’s “Shadow Party” Takes Shape

While Soros’s 527s were clearly devoted to Democratic Party agendas and values, they publicly professed to be independent of any party affiliations. Their partisanship was somewhat shrouded in proverbial shadows. Gradually, a number of journalists began to make reference to the emergence of certain pro-Democrat “shadow organizations” that seemed geared toward circumventing McCain-Feingold’s soft-money ban. In time, the term “Shadow Party” came into use.237

George Soros set in motion the wheels of this Shadow Party when he gathered a team of political strategists, activists, and Democrat donors at his Long Island beach house on July 17, 2003, to discuss how President Bush could be defeated in the 2004 election. Attendees included such luminaries as OSI director Morton Halperin; former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta; former Clinton speechwriters Jeremy Rosner and Robert Boorstin; Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope; labor leader and former Clinton advisor Steve Rosenthal; EMILY’s List founder and abortion-rights activist Ellen Malcolm; and major Democrat donors such as Lewis and Dorothy Cullman, Robert McKay, Robert Glaser, and Peter Lewis.238

The consensus was that voter turnout―particularly in 17 “swing” or “battleground” states239―would be the key to unseating President Bush. Steve Rosenthal and Ellen Malcolm―CEO and president, respectively, of a newly formed but poorly funded voter-registration group called America Coming Together (ACT)240―suggested that voters in those swing states should be recruited and mobilized as soon as possible. Agreeing, Soros told the pair that he personally would give ACT $10 million to help maximize its effectiveness. A few other attendees also pledged to give the fledgling group large sums of money: Soros’s billionaire friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corporation, promised to give $10 million; Robert Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million; Rob McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, committed $1 million; and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman pledged $500,000.241

By early 2004, the administrative core of George Soros’s Shadow Party was in place. It consisted of seven ostensibly “independent” nonprofit groups―all but one of which were headquartered in Washington, DC. In a number of cases, these groups shared one another’s finances, directors, and corporate officers; occasionally they even shared office space.242 The seven groups were:

1) America Coming Together (ACT): Jump-started by Soros’s $10 million grant, ACT in 2004 ran what it called “the largest voter-contact program in history,” with more than 1,400 full-time paid canvassers contacting potential voters door-to-door and by phone.243

2) Center For American Progress (CAP): This entity was established to serve as a think tank promoting leftist ideas and policy initiatives. Soros, enthusiastic about the Center’s potential, pledged in July 2003 to donate up to $3 million to help get the project off the ground.244 From the outset, CAP’s leadership featured a host of former high-ranking officials from the Clinton administration.245 Hillary Clinton predicted that the organization would provide “some new intellectual capital” with which to “build the 21st-century policies that reflect the Democrat Party’s values.”246 George Soros and Morton Halperin together selected former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta to serve as president of CAP. Podesta said his goal was to develop CAP as a “think tank on steroids,” featuring “a message-oriented war room” that “will send out a daily briefing to refute the positions and arguments of the right.”247

3) America Votes: This national coalition coordinated the efforts of many get-out-the-vote organizations and their thousands of contributing activists.248 Soros’s support for America Votes would continue well past 2004. Indeed he would donate $2.15 million to this coalition in the 2006 election cycle,249 another $1.25 million in advance of the 2008 elections,250 and yet another $1.25 million in 2010.251

4) Media Fund: Describing itself as “the largest media-buying organization supporting a progressive message” in the United States, this group produced and strategically placed political ads in the print, broadcast, and electronic media.252

5) Joint Victory Campaign 2004 (JVC): This fundraising entity focused on collecting contributions and then disbursing them chiefly to America Coming Together and the Media Fund. In 2004 alone, JVC channeled $19.4 million to the former, and $38.4 million to the latter.253 Soros personally gave JVC more than $12 million that year.254

6) Thunder Road Group (TRG): This political consultancy coordinated strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together, and America Votes. Its duties included strategic planning, polling, opposition research, covert operations, and public relations.255

7) MoveOn.org: This California-based entity was the only one of the Shadow Party’s core groups that was not a new startup operation. Launched in September 1998, MoveOn is a Web-based political network that organizes online activists around specific issues, raises money for Democratic candidates, generates political ads, and is very effective at recruiting young people to support Democrats.256 In November 2003, Soros pledged to give MoveOn $5 million to help its cause.257

According to Ellen Malcolm of America Coming Together (ACT), the financial commitment which Soros made to these Shadow Party groups in 2003 “was a signal to potential donors that he had looked at what was going on and that this was pretty exciting, and that he was going to stand behind it, and it was the real deal.”258 As Byron York observed, “After Soros signed on, contributions started pouring in.” ACT and the Media Fund alone took in some $200 million―including $20 million from Soros alone. This type of money was unprecedented in American politics.259

Harold Ickes, who served as White House deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, had a hand in creating every Shadow Party core group except MoveOn. He was also entrusted with the vital task of making these organizations function as a cohesive entity. In 2004, Democratic strategist Harold Wolfson suggested that outside of the official campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry, Ickes “is the most important person in the Democratic Party today.”260

In addition to its seven core members, the Shadow Party also came to include at least another 30 well-established leftwing activist groups and labor unions that participated in the America Votes coalition. Among the better-known of these were ACORN; the AFL-CIO; the AFSCME; the American Federation of Teachers; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund; EMILY’s List; the Human Rights Campaign; the League of Conservation Voters; the NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America; the National Education Association; People for the American Way; Planned Parenthood; the Service Employees International Union; and the Sierra Club.261 …”

“Mitt Romney is no Charlie Crist. Romney is a conservative. and he was one of the first national Republican leaders to endorse me. He came to Florida, campaigned hard for me, and made a real difference in my race.”

~Marco Rubio

Florida Senator Marco Rubio should have said that Mitt Romney is a progressive neoconservative, just like me.

Mitt Romney: “My Views Are Progressive”

The REAL Mitt Romney: Flip-Flopper Extraordinaire

MittvMitt.com: The story of two men trapped in one body

Rush Limbaugh – Romney Is Not Mr. Conservative

Bill O’Reilly interviews Marco Rubio

SA@TAC – No Excuse: Mitt Romney’s Case for American Empire

SA@TAC – What’s a ‘Neoconservative?’

SA@TAC – Taking the ‘Neo’ Out of ‘Conservative’

SA@TheDC – Does Attacking Neoconservatism Reflect Racism or Reality?

SA@TAC – Israel and the Right

SA@TheDC – Russell Kirk and 9/11

SA@TAC – Real Conservatives Must Rethink War

SA@TAC – A Conservative Foreign Policy Comeback?

SA@TAC – Ronald Reagan: Isolationist

SA@TheDC – “I Like Ron Paul Except on Foreign Policy”

Both libertarian conservatives and traditional conservatives will need to find a new political party should the Republican Party establishment dominated by progressive neoconservatives get their dream ticket of Romney and Rubio, the Republican’s R&R.

Such a ticket would leave no doubt that the right-wing progressives, formerly of the Democratic Party and now calling themselves neoconservatives, have won and destroyed the Republican Party.

Real conservatives, both libertarians and traditionalists, will form another political party and search for candidates that want neither a warfare or welfare state.

Both the progressive socialists of the welfare Democratic Party and progressive neoconservatives of the warfare Republican Party are statists and collectivists that want the American people to be dependent upon big government.

The American people will reject both the left-wing progressive socialists that offer welfare and right-wing progressive neoconservatives that offer warfare.

The American people will support libertarian and traditional conservatives that advocate limited government with balanced budgets and a peace and prosperity economy.

As both a libertarian and traditional conservative and tea party patriot, I for one will not vote for a progressive socialist ticket of Obama/Biden or a progressive neoconservative ticket of Romney/Rubio.

Progressives of either stripe are tickets to serfdom with out of control government spending and massive government deficits and debts requiring higher taxes and inflation.

I will be voting for Ron Paul, the only libertarian and traditional conservative candidate for president.

Paul wants limited government, lower taxes, balanced budgets and a non-interventionist foreign policy with all wars being declared as required by the Constitution.

SA@TAC – The Return of the Real Right

SA@TAC – Rand Paul, Jim DeMint and the GOP

SA@TheDC – Conservatism’s Future: Young Americans for Liberty

“I like Ron Paul Except on Foreign Policy”

“An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government.”

~Dr. Ron Paul

Background Articles and Videos

Gov. Romney Endorses Rubio In Tampa

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aNmQ3sw3ms]

Romney Campaign Run by Charlie Crist’s Political Aides

By Andrew Henry

“…As Mitt Romney puts the South Carolina primary in his rear-view mirror and hits the accelerator in a bid to win Florida, he may discover himself crashing headlong into the bitter legacy of Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor who defected from the GOP and was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate by Marco Rubio.
Romney’s “Charlie Crist” problem is this: Romney’s chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Crist’s top political advisers — the same ones who crafted Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy epitomized in Crist’s famous “hug” of President Barack Obama. That strategy led Crist, once the most popular Republican governor in the nation, to defeat.

Crist’s erstwhile political team was led by controversial GOP strategist Stuart Stevens. Stevens and partner Russ Schriefer are the principals in the high-profile Stevens & Schriefer Group consultant firm and are playing the lead role in crafting Romney’s primary and national campaign strategy.

According to the Stevens & Schriefer website, the firm had a long history with Crist, serving as chief strategists for his bids for education commissioner, attorney general, governor, and later for the U.S. Senate.

Other senior Crist political aides from his failed Senate campaign now hold key posts in Romney’s campaign. Amanda Henneberg, who had served as Crist’s press secretary, now is a spokeswoman with the Romney 2012 campaign. Likewise, Andrea Saul, who was Crist’s communications director, now is Romney’s press secretary. …”

Senator Rand Paul

Profile of A Terrorist?

“The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.”

“That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.”

“We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history. I am deeply committed to doing that as President of the United States.”

~Ron Paul, Republican Presidential Candidate

Rand Paul on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano (1/23/12)

Sen. Rand Paul on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer – 1/23/1012

White House Response to Rand Paul’s incident with TSA

Ron Paul on the Growing TSA Rebellion

The TSA was apparently lying or misleading the media and the public when it denied that they were doing random automated screening of airline passenger for enhanced screening as this TSA document clearly indicates:

TSA Secure Flight Requirements

The purpose of the Secure Flight program is to identify and prevent known or suspected terrorists or other individuals who may pose a threat to transportation security from boarding aircraft or accessing sterile areas 2 of airports where they may jeopardize the lives of passengers and others. The program is designed to better focus passenger and baggage screening efforts on passengers likely to pose a threat to civil aviation. Generally, the Secure Flight program will compare passenger and non-traveler information to the No Fly and Selectee List components of the Terrorist Screening Center Database. TSA, however, may use other watch lists maintained by TSA or other federal agencies to identify security risks when warranted by security considerations. A detailed discussion of the Secure Flight program may be found in previously published PIAs. …”

Both the TSA and the White House are in spin or lying mode which is par for this President.

Enough is enough.

Abolish the TSA and give the responsibility for airline security passenger screening to the airlines and airport.

Stop using the airlines until this happens.

“Police State In This Country Is Growing Out Of Control!” Ron Paul Vow To Eliminate The TSA!

Rand Paul’s Pat-Down Standoff With TSA in Nashville

Sen. Rand Paul Detained by TSA !

Rand Paul Detained by TSA

Rand Paul: Detained by TSA in the USA!

Americans are the Terrorists

FEDERAL TERROR TACTICS : Rand Paul : Judge Napolitano

Freedom’s Greatest Hour of Danger is Now : Judge Napolitano

S.O.S Last Days of Liberty?

TSA RELEASES AIRPORT SCAN PHOTO OF SEN RAND PAUL

TSA Harassment!!! Video

For the Record : TSA

TSA Enhanced Screening Procedures Explained

Transportation Security Administration

“…Pat-downs

For Travelers

What triggers a pat-down?
Pat-downs are used to resolve alarms at the checkpoint, including those triggered by metal detectors and AIT units. Pat-downs are also used when a person opts out of AIT screening in order to detect potentially dangerous and prohibited items. Because pat-downs are specifically used to resolve alarms and prevent dangerous items from going on a plane, the vast majority of passengers will not receive a pat-down at the checkpoint.

What can I do to prevent an alarm at the security checkpoint?
The majority of pat-downs occur when a passenger alarms either the metal detector or the AIT unit. To reduce this circumstance, the most important thing you can do is take everything out of your pockets before you go through screening. Also, when traveling, avoid wearing clothes with a high metal content, and put heavy jewelry on after you go through security.

What do I do during a pat-down?
All passengers have important rights during a pat-down. You have the right to request the pat-down be conducted in a private room and you have the right to have the pat-down witnessed by a person of your choice. All pat-downs are only conducted by same-gender officers. The officer will explain the pat-down process before and during the pat-down. If you have a medical device, please inform the officer.

Will children receive pat-downs?
Transportation Security Officers will work with parents to resolve any alarms at the checkpoint. If required, a child may receive a modified pat-down. Parents are encouraged to ensure their children have taken all items out of their pockets as they go through the security checkpoint. …”

US Sen. Rand Paul says he was stopped by Nashville airport security for anomaly on knee

By Associated Press,

“…NASHVILLE, Tenn. — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was stopped by security at the Nashville airport Monday when a scanner set off an alarm and targeted his knee, although the senator said he has no screws or medical hardware around the joint.The Republican, who frequently uses the airport about an hour from his home in Bowling Green, Ky., told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he asked for another scan but refused to submit to a pat down by airport security.

He said he was “detained” at a small cubicle and couldn’t make his flight to Washington for a Senate vote scheduled later in the day.

Paul, the son of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, said the situation reflects his long-standing concern that the TSA shouldn’t be “spending so much time with people who wouldn’t attack us.”

TSA spokesman Greg Soule confirmed there was an incident but didn’t identify the passenger as Paul.

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” Soule said in a written statement. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

A TSA official speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal screening policies said Paul was never detained. The official said an alarm set off when Paul went through routine airport screening, and Paul refused to receive additional screening. People who refuse to go through airport security are not allowed to get on a plane, the official said. Local police escorted Paul out of the screening area, the official said.

Paul went through a millimeter wave machine that uses a generic outline of a body for all passengers. When there is an alarm, TSA officers target the area of the body that triggered the alarm and pat down the passenger, the official said.

Paul told reporters at the airport that he had no idea why his knee raised concerns with TSA. He said he showed his knee to the security agents and doesn’t have any medical hardware or issues in the knee.

“There is no problem. It was just a problem with their machine. But this is getting more frequent, and because everybody has to have a pat down it’s a problem,” Paul said. …”

“Just got a call from @senrandpaul,” Bagley tweeted at about 10 a.m. on Monday. “He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul – Sen. Rand Paul’s father – placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. “My son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,” Ron Paul posted. “I’ll share more details as the situation unfolds.”

Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son “for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook page has a post about the incident too. “Senator Paul is being detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA,” Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook post reads. “We will update you as the situation develops.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s chief of staff Doug Stafford told The Daily Caller the Senator “was detained by the TSA after their scanner had an ‘anomaly’ on the first scan.”

“He offered to go through again,” Stafford said in an email. “The TSA said he could only have a full body pat down. He would not consent to it. He offered to go through the scanner again. The situation is ongoing.”

“…Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a “grassroots” political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story. Though the film is less well known than other Frank Capra classics, it remains highly regarded today. It was ranked #49 in AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Cheers. In 1969, the film entered the public domain (in the USA) due to the claimants’ failure to renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after release.[1]

Plot

Infuriated at being told to write one final column after being laid off from her newspaper job, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) prints a letter from a fictional unemployed “John Doe” threatening suicide on Christmas Eve in protest of society’s ills. When the note causes a sensation and the paper’s competition suspects a fraud and starts to investigate, the newspaper editor rehires Mitchell who comes up with a scheme of hiding the fictional nature of “John Doe” while exploiting the sensation caused by the fake letter to boost the newspaper’s sales, for which she demands a bonus equal to 8 months’ pay. After reviewing a number of derelicts who have shown up at the paper claiming to have penned the original suicide letter, Mitchell and editor Henry Connell (James Gleason) hire John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a former baseball player and tramp who is in need of money to repair his injured arm, to play John Doe. Mitchell now starts to pen an article series in Doe’s name, elaborating on the letter’s ideas of society’s disregard of people in need.

Willoughby gets $50, a new suit of clothes, and a plush hotel suite with his tramp friend (Walter Brennan), who launches into an extended diatribe against “the heelots”, lots of heels who incessantly focus on getting money from others. Willoughby is hired to give radio speeches, guided by Mitchell who is promised $100 a week to writes his speeches, paid by the newspaper’s publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold). Willoughby turns down a $5,000 bribe to admit the whole thing was a publicity stunt, gives Mitchell’s speech, and dashes off to the countryside with “The Colonel”. They ride the rails, playing the harmonica and ocarina until they show up in Millsville, where John Doe is recognized at a diner. He’s brought to City Hall, where he’s met by Hanson, who gives a five-minute monologue about how he was inspired to start a local John Doe club.

The John Doe philosophy spreads across the country, developing into a broad grassroots movement whose simple slogan is, “Be a better neighbor”. Far from being an altruistic philanthropist, however, Norton plans to channel the support for Doe into support for his own national political ambitions. As a culmination of this plan, Norton has instructed Mitchell to write a speech for Willoughby in which he announces the foundation of a new political party and endorses Norton as its presidential candidate.

When Willoughby, who has come to believe in the John Doe philosophy himself, realizes that he is being used, he tries to expose the plot, but is first stymied in his attempts to talk his own mind to a nationwide radio audience at the rally instead of reading the prepared speech, and then exposed as a fake by Norton, who claims to have been deceived, like everyone else, by the staff of the newspaper. Frustrated by his failure, Willoughby intends to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of the City Hall on Christmas Eve, as indicated in the original John Doe letter. Only the intervention of Mitchell and followers of the John Doe clubs persuades him to renege on his threat to kill himself. At this point in the movie, a reference to Jesus Christ is made, that a historical “John Doe” has already died for the sake of humanity. The film ends with Connell turning to Norton and saying, “There you are, Norton! The people! Try and lick that!”

Big Government

Democratic Progressive Socialists and

Republican Progressive Neoconservatives

Overspent and Overtaxed The American People

— “Deficit” vs. “Debt”—

“…Suppose you spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a “budget deficit”. So you borrow (ie; use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you spend more than your income, another deficit, you must borrow some more, and you’ll still have to pay the interest on your debt (now larger). If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don’t have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.

“Reducing the deficit” is a meaningless soundbite. If the DEFICIT is any amount more than ZERO, we have to borrow more and the DEBT grows.

Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress’s appropriations. Here is a direct link to the Congressional Budget Office web site’s deficit analysis. We have to pay interest* on that huge, growing debt; and it cuts into our budget big time. …”

“…Bar Chart Data Source: Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) published by the U. S. Treasury Department. WE DON’T MAKE THIS DATA UP! IT COMES FROM THE U. S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT! NO ADJUSTMENTS.

The MTS published in October of each year contains the total “actuals” for the FY just ended. The MTS covering through September 2011 was released on 14 October 2011, so this chart shows Actuals for FY2011.
Normally the chart also shows the proposed budget line for the next fiscal year, but there is no U. S. budget for FY2012.

As part of the “War Supplement Bill for FY2011“, The House of Representatives “deemed” the 2011 Budget, and the Senate completely discarded the Presidential Budget Proposal. So there was not Federal Budget for FY2011.
Similarly, the President submitted a budget for FY2012, but Senator Reid tossed it, and would not let Congress vote on it. The House of Representatives also sent a 2012 budget proposal to the Senate. Same result. There is no U.S. Federal Budget for FY2012.

Instead, we have a series of “continuing resolutions”, allowing Congress to continue spending without the guidelines of a budget. But the Treasury Department has to borrow money to pay for that spending. It adds to the National Debt.

On 4 October 2011, a Congressional Panel Hearing suggested that Congress skip the entire budget process.

– – – – – – –

NDAC studies the Budget Proposals submitted to Congress each year by the President of the United States. One of the documents that goes along with the Budget Proposal, “Historical Tables“, is published by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Our analysis is discussed on the home page of this web site.

Just for clarification: “entitlement” expenditures are handled by several federal agencies, not just Health and Human Services. Agriculture Department administers “food stamps”, HUD is all welfare.

Some suggest “tax the rich to make up the deficit”. The total worth of all American billionaires is $1.3 Trillion. We could take ALL their worth, not just high taxes, but ALL their WORTH; and it wouldn’t dent our national debt. It wouldn’t even pay this year deficit! And if we did take their money to pay some of this year’s deficit, what would we do next year? We’ve already spent too much. Here’s a video to explain better. …”

Neo-cons: Invasion of the Party Snatchers Part 2

Ron Paul: “Imagine For A Moment…”

Ron Paul Ad – Who will you believe?

Ron Paul on Israel: Zionism is Based on Independence and Self-Reliance

Conservative vs. Neoconservative

The neoconservatives – a name they gave themselves – have diligently worked their way into positions of power and influence.

They documented their goals, strategy and moral justification for all they hope to accomplish.

Above all else, they were not and ARE NOT true conservatives dedicated to limited, constitutional government.

If the neocons retain control of the conservative, limited-government movement in Washington, the ideas once championed by conservatives of limiting the size and scope of government, will be a long-forgotten dream.

Here is a partial summary of what neocons believe:

1. They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution – violent as well as intellectual.

2. They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.

3. They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.

4. They accept the notion that the ends justify the means.

5. They express no opposition to the welfare state.

6. They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.

7. They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.

8. They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.

9. They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill-advised.

10. They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate.

11. Using American might to force their ideals on other nations is acceptable.

12. They endorse attacks on civil liberties, such as those found in the Patriot Act, as being necessary.

Background Articles and Videos

Libya and Syria: The Neocon Plan to Attack Seven Countries in Five Years

Rick Perry to drop out of U.S. presidential race

That’s according to Republican officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Perry’s announcement.

Perry plans a news conference Tuesday morning inSouth Carolina, where he will announce his decision.

He has faced calls to drop out of the race as polls show him languishing while Gingrich gains steam.

Meanwhile, a swirl of late developments and sharpened campaign tactics have tightened the Republican nominating race in South Carolina before the state votes Saturday, but polls show front-running Mitt Romney still leading a hard-charging Gingrich by about 10 percentage points.

The first Southern-state vote is viewed as a chance for Romney, the formerMassachusettsgovernor and venture capitalist, to seal the contest to challenge a vulnerable President Barack Obama in November. The five candidates still in the Republican contest meet Thursday night for their second debate this week.

Since 1980, no Republican has won the presidential nomination without a victory inSouth Carolina. …”

“…The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

MARK LEVIN BUSTED – FINALLY REVEALS HIMSELF HE IS WORKING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT

Guess which talk radio shows were attacking Ron Paul by bringing up the so-called racist newsletter issue in the three weeks before the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary?

Hell will freeze over before I vote for any Republican big government neoconservative progressive.

Mitt Romney in particular will never get my vote.

The American people are waking up.

Background Articles and Videos

Premiere Networks (formerly Premiere Radio Networks, or PRN) is an American radio network. It is the largest syndication company in the United States based on popularity of programming. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications and it is headed by Julie Talbott, who serves as president, content and affiliate relations.

Premiere syndicates some of the most famous names and programs in American broadcasting, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, Coast to Coast AM, Jim Rome, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Leo Laporte, and Randi Rhodes. Premiere programs are carried on over 5,000 radio stations worldwide, primarily in the United States and in Canada. The network also provides the rights to streaming audio for participating shows’ premium services (e.g., Rush Limbaugh’s Rush 24/7 and Glenn Beck’s Insider) through their Streamlink system.

Several programs are carried on XM Satellite Radio, which is the exclusive satellite provider for Premiere and parent Clear Channel Radio. However, shows that are not produced by Premiere or any Clear Channel subsidiary, but are distributed by Premiere, are allowed carriage on Sirius Satellite Radio unless otherwise specified by said show’s producer.

Clear Channel Communications

“…Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.[3] It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008.[4] Clear Channel specializes in radio broadcasting, concert promotion and hosting, and fixed advertising in the United States through its subsidiaries. After 21 years, Mark Mays stepped down as President and CEO of Clear Channel on June 23, 2010.[5] Mays will remain as Chairman of the Board, a position he has held for a year prior. The Board has engaged Egon Zehnder International, a leading executive search firm, to lead the search for a new CEO.

Clear Channel is the largest owner of full-power AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations and twelve radio channels on XM Satellite Radio, and is also the largest pure-play radio station owner and operator. The group was in the television business until it sold all of its TV stations to Newport Television in 2008.

The term “clear channel” comes from AM broadcasting, referring to a channel (frequency) on which only one station transmits. In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting history, “clear channel” (or class I-A) stations had exclusive rights to their frequencies throughout most of the continent at night, when AM stations travel very far due to skywave. WOAI in San Antonio, Clear Channel’s flagship station, was such a station.

History

Clear Channel Communications purchased its first FM station in San Antonio in 1972. The company purchased the second “clear channel” AM station WOAI in 1975. In 1976, the company purchased its first stations outside of San Antonio. KXXO AM and KMOD FM in Tulsa were acquired under the name “San Antonio Broadcasting” (same as KEEZ). Stations were also added in Port Arthur, TX (KPAC-AM-FM from Port Arthur College) and El Paso, TX (KELP AM (now KQBU AM) from John Walton, Jr.). In 1992, the U.S. Congress relaxed radio ownership rules slightly, allowing the company to acquire more than 2 stations per market. By 1995, Clear Channel owned 43 radio stations and 16 television stations. In 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 became law. This act deregulated media ownership, allowing a company to own more stations than previously. Clear Channel went on a buying spree, purchasing more than 70 other media companies, plus individual stations.

In a few cases, following purchase of a competitor, Clear Channel was forced to divest some of its stations, as it was above the legal thresholds in some cities. In 2005, the courts ruled that Clear Channel must also divest itself of some “border blaster” radio stations in international border cities, such as the alternative rock radio station 91X in Tijuana, Baja California/San Diego.

In 1997 Clear Channel moved out of pure broadcasting when it purchased billboard firm Eller Media[6] which was led by Karl Eller.

In 1998 it made its first move outside of the United States when it acquired the leading UK outdoor advertising company More Group plc which was led by Roger Parry; Clear Channel went on to buy many other outdoor advertising, radio broadcasting, and live events companies around the world, which were then re-branded Clear Channel International. These included a 51% stake in Clear Media Ltd. in China.[7]

In 1999, the company acquired Jacor Communications, a radio corporation based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

R. Steven Hicks and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst began Capstar Broadcasting in 1996 and a year later had become the largest owner of radio stations in the country, with 243 stations in all. In August 1997, Capstar and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst announced plans to acquire SFX Broadcasting Inc., with the resulting company owning 314 stations in 79 markets and ranking as the third-largest radio group by income.[8] A year later, Chancellor Media Corporation and Capstar Broadcasting Corporation announced a merger which would result in Chancellor Media owning 463 stations in 105 markets once the deal was completed in second quarter 1999. Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst owned 59 percent of Capstar, with 355 stations in 83 markets, and was the largest single owner of Chancellor (which had 108 stations in 22 markets), with 15 percent of the stock.[9] Chancellor Media later became AMFM Inc., which was acquired by Clear Channel in a deal announced October 3, 1999 and valued at $17.4 billion. The resulting company would own 830 radio stations, 19 television stations, and over 425,000 outdoor displays in 32 countries.[10][11]

In 2005 Clear Channel Communications split into three separate companies. Clear Channel Communications was a radio broadcaster; Clear Channel Outdoor was out-of-home advertising; and Live Nation was live events. The Mays family remained in effective control of all three, and held key executive roles in each (with Mark Mays as CEO of both radio and outdoor and Randall Mays as Chairman of Live Nation).

On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel announced plans to go private, being bought out by two private-equity firms, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners for $18.7 billion, which is just under a 10 percent premium above its closing price of $35.36 a share on November 16 (the deal values Clear Channel at $37.60 per share).[12][13] The new ownership of Clear Channel has also announced that all of its TV stations were for sale, as well as 448 radio stations that were outside of the top 100 markets.[14] All of the TV stations and 161 of the radio stations were sold to a Providence Equity Partners, a private-equity firm, on April 23, 2007, pending FCC approval.[15]

On July 24, 2008, Clear Channel held a special shareholder meeting, during which the majority of shareholders accepted a revised $36-per-share offer from Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.[16] The company announced on July 30 that it would offer shareholders either $36 in cash or one share of CC Media Class A common stock for each share of Clear Channel common stock held.[17]

In early 2010 it was announced that the company was facing bankruptcy due to its “crippling debt.”[18]

In November 2010 Clear Channel Radio announced a multi-platform campaign with the USO as part of a National Community Engagement campaign.

Businesses

Clear Channel has purchased interest in, or outright acquired, companies in a number of media or advertising related industries. This is not an exhaustive list.

Radio

With 850 stations, Clear Channel is the largest radio station group owner in the United States, both by number of stations and by revenue. According to BIA Financial Network, Clear Channel Media & Entertainment recorded more than $3.5 billion in revenues in as of 2005[update], $1 billion more than the number-two group owner, CBS Radio.[19]

Clear Channel has purchased stations from or acquired the following radio companies:

Television

The first television station Clear Channel purchased was WPMI in Mobile, Alabama in 1988. It owned more than 40 additional stations, a few of which are independent (non-network affiliates). In 2007, the company entered into an agreement to sell all its television stations to Providence Equity Partners for $1.2 billion, a deal which eventually closed in March, 2008. All former Clear Channel television stations are now owned by Newport Television, except for six stations then flipped to other buyers by Newport.

Live events

On December 21, 2005, Clear Channel completed the spin-off of Live Nation, formerly known as Clear Channel Entertainment. Live Nation is an independent company (NYSE: LYV) and is no longer owned by Clear Channel. Live Nation UK was also included in the spin off.

Note that post-spinoff, there is overlap the board between Clear Channel and Live Nation, specifically: L. Lowry Mays, Mark P. Mays (Former Vice Chairman of Live Nation), and Randall T. Mays (Former Chairman of Live Nation).[20]

Vertical Real Estate

In 2003, Clear Channel created the Vertical Real Estate division and hired Scott Quitadamo to promote its tower portfolio. Clear Channel owns and operates approximately 1,500 broadcast transmission towers across the US. many of which are available for co-location by third parties such as cellular and PCS companies, wireless internet, fixed wireless, and other broadcasters.

Tom Hicks and Vernon Jordan were formerly members of Clear Channel’s board of directors. Jordan was a close friend and advisor to President Bill Clinton and was accused of lying to investigators during the investigations into perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Clinton. Hicks, Clear Channel’s former vice-chairman, is a past donor to George W. Bush’s political campaigns and a close associate of the Bush family. Hicks is the founder of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, the private-equity firm which funded many of Clear Channel’s antecedent companies, including most significantly CapStar, Chancellor Media and AM-FM, Inc..

[edit] Top executives

Lowry Mays

company founder, chairman;

Mark Mays

son of Lowry Mays, chief executive officer, president and chief operating officer;

Randall Mays

son of Lowry Mays, executive vice president and chief financial officer;

John Hogan

chief executive officer of Clear Channel radio

Sources:[23][24]

Programming on Clear Channel radio stations

Clear Channel operates the country’s largest syndication service, Premiere Radio Networks. In addition, Clear Channel syndicates a number of its homegrown talk and music shows without the aid of Premiere. While Premiere actively sells its shows to stations, the non-Premiere syndicated shows are often used as a cost-cutting measure and do not have a large sales staff. Those shows also do not carry network-wide advertising (unless distributed by a third party), and allow the affiliates to keep all local spots, which increases their appeal. These networks carry many program hosts of various political ideologies and distribute a variety of programs to both Clear Channel-owned and non-Clear Channel-owned stations.

Main article: Premiere Radio Networks

Main article: List of shows syndicated by Clear Channel

In addition to its own syndication network, Clear Channel offers studio space and other services to the WestStar TalkRadio Network, which is based at Clear Channel’s studios in Phoenix, Arizona. As a result, many WestStar programs are heard on Clear Channel stations.

Not all programming heard on Clear Channel’s radio stations are produced in house; however, most of Clear Channel’s stations share many similarities to each other in branding and programming.

Format Lab and HD2 Formats

Main article: Format Lab

The Format Lab is a think tank run by Clear Channel that produces over eighty channels of programming, varying from mainstream formats to the highly experimental. These channels are heard on most of Clear Channel’s HD Radio subchannels on its stations across the country in a commercial-free format.

Only a few Clear Channel stations (such as KGB-FM and KLOU) produce locally originated HD2 channels, usually tape loops of programming heard on their regular channel.

iheartradio

Main article: iheartradio

iheartradio is a interactive media social networking platform outlet to aggregate local radio brands, personalities and on-demand content including photos, videos and more.

Urban, urban AC and rhythmic stations

Stations that carry programming catering to black Americans are a big part of many Clear Channel clusters, particularly Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit. In many clusters Clear Channel has two or more such stations. About half the Urban stations focus on Rap and Hip Hop along with younger R & B sounds. The other half blend some younger R & B along with some Soul from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s along with some current product. Some of the Hip Hop based Urban stations report as Rhythmic Top 40 stations rather than Urban stations because these stations also have some appeal to white and Hispanic listeners. In a cluster with multiple urban stations owned by Clear Channel, one is focused on Rap while the other is focused on Soul. Examples include Philadelphia, with WUSL’s focus on hip hop while WDAS-FM focuses on Soul (in addition, the company also owns a rhythmic AC station in that area, which is WISX 106.1), and Chicago, where WGCI-FM focuses on rap while WVAZ is focused on Soul. Clear Channel urban, urban AC or rhythmic stations are branded as “Beat” (KTBT Tulsa, WBTP Tampa & WIBT Charlotte) or “Power” (WWPR New York City, WUSL Philadelphia & WPHR Syracuse). But for San Francisco, Clear Channel owns more urban-related stations such as rhythmic top 40 KYLD, urban oldies KISQ and urban contemporary KMEL in that area, and the same happened in Detroit, where the company also owns urban AC WMXD, urban contemporary WJLB and rhythmic AC WDTW-FM.

For rhythmic AC stations, they used to have the “Party” branding (particularly during the time when most used Wake Up With Whoopi as their morning show), but the two “Party” stations in Denver (KPTT) and Las Vegas (KPLV) have since exited the rhythmic AC format. KPTT and KPLV moved to top 40, but continue to use the “Party” branding. All Clear Channel rhythmic AC stations are now differently-branded per station.

News talk stations

News talk stations owned by Clear Channel usually have a standard slate of hosts. The morning show is usually local, with other timeslots filled by local and syndicated hosts. Programs that appear on many Clear Channel talk stations include the Glenn Beck Program — getting his talk show start at Clear Channel owned WFLA (AM) in Tampa, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, America Now with Andy Dean and Coast to Coast AM, all of which are affiliated with Premiere Radio Networks in some fashion. The Savage Nation (which was until September 2009 flagshipped at Clear Channel’s KNEW-910), The Mark Levin Show and The Dave Ramsey Show are non-Premiere shows who air on many (if not most) Clear Channel stations. Limbaugh is almost universally carried on Clear Channel stations in markets where the company has a news talk station, with the exception of markets such as Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA, where ABC Radio (which previously was Limbaugh’s home network) has a news talk station in the market. New Clear Channel talk radio stations have typically been using the branding “Rush Radio,” while most older ones use a more generic “News Radio” or “News Talk.”

While most of Clear Channel’s news/talk stations carry some combination of Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage and Noory (of Coast to Coast AM), this is not always the case. Many stations (particularly in the larger markets) like KFI, KFYI, KOA, WZZR and WLW broadcast a lineup with significant local programming.

Clear Channel does not operate any all-news radio stations. For a brief time in the late 2000s, KFXR in Dallas ran a direct feed of HLN under the on-air name CNN 1190, but KFXR dropped that format in 2009. Almost all of Clear Channel’s primary talk stations are affiliated with Fox News Radio for national news, part of a multi-year deal between Clear Channel and Fox.

Liberal talk radio is heard on a few of Clear Channel’s stations, primarily secondary to its main news talk stations, and usually feature at least one local host with Dial Global programming; Air America Radio also aired on these stations. Clear Channel has shown a tendency to drop liberal talk affiliations whenever possible and replace it with satellite Fox Sports talk (see, for instance, WCKY, WARF, KLSD, WXKS [which currently runs the Clear Channel conservative talk format instead], and WINZ); this has, in a few rare circumstances, caused protests, such as those involved when Clear Channel wanted to make the same move with WXXM in Madison, Wisconsin (WXXM was eventually allowed to keep its liberal format).

As of 2011, Clear Channel has been installing FM talk stations in San Diego, California on KUSS 95.7 (which became KOGO-FM after simulcasting KOGO-AM, replacing country music), Sacramento, California on KGBY 92.5 (which became KFBK-FM after simulcasting KFBK-AM, replacing hot adult contemporary) & in Tucson, Arizona on KTZR-FM (which became KNST-FM after simulcasting KNST-AM, replacing Spanish top 40).